New Future of the Legends
by Nakora-chan
Summary: Post Timeskip. When Naruto comes back, no one notices that he's back, but everyone sees a new shinobi that reveals forbidden secrets and a contract that Konoha has hidden for a long time and doesn't want to remember. AU OC OOC
1. To Pry A Mask Off

**Title**: New Future of the Legends

**Author**: Nakora-chan

**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com

**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)

**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.

**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter One: To Pry A Mask Off**

* * *

"_They won't be after you for at least three or four years from now."_

* * *

"_That's the kind of thing a fool would do!"_

"_If that's what it meant to be wise, I'd be happier living as a fool…"_

"_A fool is a fool, but only a moron would do something like that."_

"_Watch me…"_

* * *

"YO! GAKI! Get over here!"

He looked around, and a smile lit up his face as he looked to see his sensei beckoning him. Running over to his teacher, he was immediately rewarded with a swat to the head. In his usually slightly slurred voice, his sensei scolded, "Just what did you think you were doing, gaki?"

To his surprise, he returned his sensei's swat with a swat of his own, causing his sensei to cringe in pain at his 'so-called' tender head. Narrowing his eyes, he complained to his sensei, "Looking for you. Were you at the bathhouses again? I wouldn't be surprised if you also went to the bookstore to see if there was anyone buying your books so you could force them to take you to any good 'research' sites."

Immediately, the boy's sensei blushed a deep red before toughening up and regaining his 'almighty' status. He straightened his back so that he could gain whatever height he could over his growing pupil that would soon be towering over him. Coughing into his hand he said aloud to no one in particular, "I don't think this is the best time for that." He immediately received a glare, but ignored the death glare he was receiving from his student. Spinning around to face the other direction, he marched off and called to his student, "Let's go. I want to be there by nightfall."

"OI! Where are we going anyway? You still haven't told me."

Turning just his head to look at his pupil, he grinned impishly and held up his hand to his mouth, pointing at his student. Laughing deviously, he snickered, "You must be stupid—" Again a swat came for his head, but he dodged it just in time. "I know something that you don't know, gaki."

Giving a quick and mild glare to his sensei, he started walking down the road that they were taking out of the small town. Taking a few more steps, he turned back to his teacher and gave him a full out death glare. "You didn't tell me! You knew all along, you pervert! Why couldn't you tell me we're going back to Konoha?"

* * *

_Step… step…_

"It has been three years since you've last seen this place."

He looked up at his sensei and gave a bright smile, "Yeah."

Slipping out of the pair of geta he wore as shoes, he nimbly jumped up onto the nearest electrical tower without stepping onto other buildings. Hands in his pockets, he looked around his home village and murmured, "This place hasn't changed much, has it?"

From the ground, his teacher grinned, "He certainly is more cheerful today, isn't he?"

Taking in his surroundings, he gave a full out grin as he decided what his next order of business was going to be. To any regular shinobi, they would have just seen a static blur around him, and to any regular civilian, they would have seen that he was just standing where he was just a moment ago.

The next thing that happened was people screaming in hysteria.

He only snickered mischievously and asked to the person that had been spying on him since had first entered the village, "What do you think, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi looked up from his book and smiled under his mask. He lazed about on the roof of the nearby building, the infamous orange book in hand. Waving off the situation, he shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

Hiding his impish, evil grin behind his hand, he pointed at the Hokage mountain and said, "It does when your name is on it, Kakashi-sensei."

"What!" Kakashi did a double take when he saw that what had happened to the Hokage mountain.

"He has you there, Kakashi." Jiraiya jumped up onto the roof of the building opposite of Kakashi and sat down carelessly. He tossed the pair of geta that had been left on the ground to the owner with practiced ease. Jiraiya said, "Don't make me carry your shoes, gaki. It's enough that I have to buy you a new pair every single time that you go to the bathhouse."

Closing his book, Kakashi eyed the pair and told them, "You'd better go see the Hokage and Sakura." Looking pointedly, he said, "Sakura especially."

The two nodded. Slipping into the pair of geta, he jumped onto the roof beside Kakashi and said, "You haven't changed a bit, Kakashi-sensei." Reaching into his inner pocket, he rummaged around for something. "I have a present for you." He pulled it out and showed it to his genin teacher.

Kakashi stared at it with wide eyes. "What! You… H-How… Th…This is…"

He nodded, "This is the brand new Icha Icha Tactics, unreleased edition," and then he frowned thoughtfully. "I don't really see what's so great about how Ero-Sennin writes, but hey, if it floats your boat, then by all means, go for it."

The silver-haired jounin sweatdropped. The person in front of him still didn't understand the wonders of the Icha Icha Paradise series. Taking the brand new book, he immediately snuggled up with it. "Don't worry now, precious. Kakashi-kun will take care of you now. Kakashi-kun will make sure that nothing bad happens to you."

Just watching Kakashi stroke the book fondly was enough to make him go green and sweatdrop.

"Alright, Kakashi-sensei."

Jumping down from the rooftop, he landed agilely, his clothes all a-flutter. The way that his clothes moved in the air suggested something not so human about it, as if he could control the wind and maybe the air itself. Without a sound, he had landed on the ground and without the slightest puff of air as he settled onto the ground. Gracefully, he dusted nonexistent dust and dirt off his clothes and looked up at both of his sensei's following him onto the ground.

Smiling brightly, he said, "Let's go see Sakura and Tsunade then."

* * *

Several steps behind their mutual student, Jiraiya and Kakashi lagged behind so that they could talk without Naruto accidentally overhearing, or at least that was what Kakashi thought.

Jiraiya kept looking at his student with an unreadable emotion flitting past his face every few moments. He said quietly, "I'll leave him to you, Kakashi."

Kakashi, who had started reading his new Icha Icha Tactics, glanced at the Sannin out of the corner of his eyes and silently urged the older man to continue.

"Akatsuki has been growing impatient, and they'll very soon be coming after him." Jiraiya looked quickly in Kakashi's direction before returning his gaze to the back of his pupil. "I need to leave and gather as much information as I can."

The jounin could only nod, taking in the information. Finally, he looked at the Sannin and asked, "Can he handle the Akatsuki?"

With the largest smirk that ever landed on the Frog Hermit's face, he told the other, "You'd be surprised with what he can do."

"You know, Ero-Sennin, it's not nice to talk behind people's back, especially when said person can hear you as loud as day."

Both men looked at their student's still form; he had apparently stopped walking when he started talking to them. Jiraiya could only chuckle at Kakashi's bewilderment and told his student, "And it's rude to eavesdrop into someone else's conversation."

"It's not rude when that conversation is about said person." He had turned to look at his sensei's catching up to him. Suddenly, a brighter smile lit up his face and he exclaimed loudly, "Oi! Tsunade! Sakura! You two don't want to be hiding where you are! If my nose isn't wrong, I believe Akamaru peed on that wall two days ago."

"EEW!!"

Coming out from the cross of the intersection, Tsunade stepped out in front of them, a small smile gracing her features. "I see that you're back."

Sakura walked out after Tsunade and peered curiously at her newly returned teammate. Surprised at the many changes, she still gave him a sweet smile and whispered, "Okaeri, Naruto."

"Tadaima."

* * *

Sakura studied Naruto. He had drastically changed. He didn't seem to be the loud and hardheaded twelve-year-old from three years ago; rather he was the composed and content fifteen-year-old of now. He didn't sport the hideous orange jumpsuit or anything similar to it. He wore a traditional black kimono, covered by an unusual white haori. Tilting her head to the side, she realized that the haori was designed with flames licking at the bottom, and with his half of his back to him, she could see the kanji for "Rokudaime Hokage" centered down on his back.

His hair had grown, and from what she could tell, he hadn't cut it for a long time. It was still remained as spiky as ever. She scrutinized her teammate a little more closely and noted that his face was maturing to look like the man in a portrait hung in her sensei, Tsunade's office. Her teammate's ever-blue eyes sparkled with intensity, but past that, she could see something that wasn't there three years ago.

With his hands clasped inside the folds of his kimono, he smiled at her and she was suddenly overcome nostalgia. Whatever happened to him out there outside of Konoha had utterly changed him; she suddenly would miss the overly loud determination that he constantly spewed out. She realized that aspects of Naruto would never appear again, such as his proclamations of undying love; as endearing as they seemed to be, they annoyed the hell out of her (and Rock Lee still spewed all that mush).

Fully turning to her, he asked, "How are you doing, Sakura?"

She smiled in return and replied, "I'm great! Everyone was wondering when you would return. We had started expecting you half a year ago." She knew that the smile on her lips didn't reach her eyes; she really didn't know why, maybe it was there was no '-chan' added on.

Chuckling lightly, he explained, "Ero-Sennin kept on running off to do his 'research' and then we had to outrun mobs of furious women, and husbands who were mad at Ero-Sennin for spying on their wives." He shuddered, "It was enlightening experience, to see how husbands can be so possessive of their wives."

Quickly noticing something, she put a hand up to her head and measured herself up to him. "You've grown."

Naruto straightened up and pulled out a completely bandaged hand to compare their heights. Glancing at his hand, Sakura noted that not even Lee bandaged his arms completely to the tips of his fingers before she shifted back to Naruto.

He smiled and said, "Yeah."

Sakura kept on smiling, but inwardly, she didn't want this. This small talk wasn't enough. They weren't connecting.

"Nii-chan!"

Everyone looked towards the voice.

"Oiroke no Jutsu!"

Instantly, she heard the perverted laughter of Konoha's legendary pervert, and she restrained herself from punching that man to kingdom come, all for the fact that he was one of the legendary Sannin and Naruto's teacher.

She looked at the appalling sight of a naked female and gawked as the female turned into an older Konohamaru. The boy smirked and asked proudly, "What do you think of that?"

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Naruto's smile didn't reach his eyes and that it wasn't a happy smile. It wasn't a smile except for the literal meaning of a smile. It was fake and broken.

In a soft voice, Naruto reprimanded the boy, "You shouldn't be doing those things anymore, Sarutobi Konohamaru-san."

The young genin boy's smile of glee disappeared and he looked at his idol in surprise and hurt. "W-what do you mean, nii-chan?"

The smile still on his face, Naruto repeated, "You shouldn't be doing those things anymore."

Sakura looked away from the sight. Konohamaru just stared at his boss, his model, his nii-chan in surprise and hurt before he hid his face behind his hair. Looking sadly at the genin, she wondered why Naruto was being so cruel to the boy. Even though she thought that this side of him was better than him being a pervert, she didn't want anyone to be hurt by this new Naruto.

"Hehe…"

His smile suddenly changed and turned into a full-blown vulpine grin. Pointing at the Hokage Mountain, he told the genin, "You should be doing stuff like that."

Everyone looked.

"**NARUTO! YOU IDIOT!**"

_THWACK! BOOM!_

A well-known crater was made in the middle of the street, dust and debris flying out of the cloud. Grabbing Naruto by the front of his clothes, she shook him violently and yelled out, "YOU IDIOT! YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED A BIT! WHAT ABOUT THE WONDERFUL FEELING OF RESPECT I HAD FOR YOU JUST NOW?"

"Maa, maa, Sakura, calm down. Konohamaru here is terrified."

She looked towards a scared stiff Konohamaru hiding behind a defensive Kakashi.

Once the attention was directed away from him, Naruto simply pushed Sakura's hands away from him before dusting himself off.

* * *

Tsunade scowled at what Naruto had done to the Hokage Mountain. The entire mountain was sporting a spectacle of colors; the colors would shift every so often so that after each blink of the eye, the faces of the Hokages changed color. On top of that, there were various messages like "Kakashi loves reading porn to little children" or "Jiraiya peeks into the women's bath at two o'clock in the afternoon" that would scroll across the faces of the Hokages.

Noticing that Naruto was calmly brushing Sakura off, she warily watched him. His actions were certainly very changed; he moved nothing like he did three years ago, and there were certain things that he did that really put her on edge. Like the way that he closed his eyes every so often, and the way that he kept his bandaged hands free at all times, not doing much with them.

Finally, she focused everyone's attention, "Now that the pleasantries are all over."

"I'd like to say something before we go on, Tsunade."

She merely cocked an eyebrow.

Everyone looked at Naruto in question. It wasn't like him to interrupt something that he didn't know of. It was strange that he failed to add any suffix to end of Tsunade's name; there was something off about the lack of a suffix.

Calmly, Naruto held a hand out and said, "I want the keys to the Estates, Tsunade."

Tsunade froze. Out of all the things she expected him to say, she never in her right mind expected that. She could feel the blood leave her face as her brown-colored eyes widened to the fullest extent.

No one dared to speak, some not knowing that the young man meant, the others completely caught off guard at the demand.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she observed Jiraiya and thought, '_Damn you Jiraiya to deepest pits of hell_'; his face was bland and uncaring. He knew about this all along; he knew that Naruto would pop that question, despite not knowing when.

Quickly regaining her composure, she asked, "Why do you want keys, Naruto? The only estates in Konoha belong to the Hyuuga and the Uchiha clans, and you know as well as I that you aren't the head of either—"

Naruto shook his head and cut in without any malice in his voice, "You know what I mean, Tsunade." With his hand still held out waiting, he repeated, "I want the keys to the Estates."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Quit the act, Tsunade," commanded Naruto gently. "You also know why I'm just calling you Tsunade."

Sakura shook herself out of her stupor and reprimanded Naruto with a light frown, "Be a bit more respectful towards the Hokage, Naruto."

Turning his head to look at Sakura with a slightly annoyed gaze for a moment, he told her, "Sakura, please stay out of this. This has nothing to do with Tsunade being the Hokage."

Seeing her apprentice bite her lip to keep back the retort, Tsunade couldn't help but acquiesce. She sighed, closing her eyes, "Alright, Naruto. You win."

"What is this I'm winning?"

She gave him a look.

"Ha ha… right," he laughed the matter off with many disbelieving looks directed towards him, scratching the back of his head in a cheerful manner. Dropping his hand, he asked, "Where are the keys anyway, Tsunade?"

"At my office," she replied just as serious. "We'll get them once Kakashi gets a good scope of your teamwork."

Naruto shook his head in disagreement and reaching into the depths of his sleeves, pulled out a scroll. He handed it to Tsunade and told her, "My mission report."

Tsunade took the scroll handed to her and leered skeptically at the boy. "It still doesn't exclude you from training, gaki."

Smiling, he reached into the other sleeve to pull out several papers and handed them to Tsunade. He carelessly said, "And _this_… is my jounin status application."

Not even bothering to look at the papers, she stared at him, blinking furiously. The others, save Jiraiya, openly gawking at him. That was certainly unexpected. From out of the blue, he had pulled out jounin applications; in her mind, Tsunade mulled over when the next Jounin Exams took place. The next Jounin Exams wouldn't take place for another half a year, but that point was moot. The boy wasn't even a chuunin; he was barely a genin when he left, so there is absolute no reason why he was applying for jounin now.

Sakura burst out in protest, her arms flailing around to support her point. "What do you mean 'your jounin status application', Naruto? You're not even a chuunin. You're still a genin."

Gesturing towards the papers he handed to Tsunade, he told everyone, "Those papers say everything."

Rifling through the papers, she skimmed through the contents making sure that all the necessary areas were filled in and all the necessary signatures were made. Stopping at one particular page, she browsed the contents before reaching the part that explained exactly why he was applying for jounin status.

Looking up from the papers, she gave the boy a cock-eyed look. "Sealing mastery?"

Naruto nodded enthusiastically and grinned. "Yup! All I need to do is get tested!"

Sakura, peering over her sensei's shoulder, repeated, "You're a seal master, Naruto?"

"Once I take the test and pass it, I'll be a bonafide seal master on par with this old bag of bones," he replied, gesturing to Jiraiya at his last comment.

"Damned gaki… be grateful!" scolded Jiraiya half-heartedly. "You wouldn't even be thinking of learning seals if it hadn't been for…" He abruptly cut himself off.

This caught everyone's interest, especially Tsunade's. She was just about to tune out the rest of the conversation if it hadn't been for Jiraiya speaking up and bringing up a delicate subject that he had to drop so suddenly.

"If it hadn't been for what, Jiraiya?" she prompted, knowing that whatever made Naruto go into seals had something to do with Naruto's condition.

Jiraiya shook his head and waved his hand thoughtlessly, trying to push the matter aside. "It's in the mission report the gaki gave you. You should read it as soon as you have time." In a quieter voice, he murmured so that only she could hear, "Since he's applying for jounin status."

She nodded in response, taking note of Jiraiya's advice. There was something about the way that it unnerved Jiraiya that got to her. Everything about her fellow Sannin seemed to be normal, but there was a rigidity in his posture that wasn't there three years ago and occasionally his fingers twitched in apprehension. But apprehension of what?

* * *

Jiraiya, Naruto, and Sakura stood before Tsunade, who sat behind her desk.

From his spot on the wall, Kakashi did nothing and said nothing as he looked on.

Clasping her hands together, Tsunade seemed to be nervous of whatever she was asking. From what Kakashi saw so far, she hadn't even taken a peek into the scroll that Naruto had given her before handing her the jounin status application. Even though he hadn't heard what the other Sannin had whispered into her ear, Kakashi knew that whatever he had said had unnerved their Hokage.

"So, we'll need to finalize your return to Konoha, Naruto."

Naruto had his hands clasped under his kimono sleeves, similar to a monk's peaceful posture. His posture was schooled to have absolute control, it seemed, and his face was bright with a smile. Just the way that he smiled caused a wave of wistfulness, but he waved it aside. He might be sad to have lost the bright laughter Naruto had three years ago, but this new Naruto brought with him a sense of hope and future that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Naruto nodded and said in return, "I'll be living at the Estates, and I'll try to stall off the contract for a while."

The contract? What contract? Sure, Naruto had the frog-summoning contract, but why would he stall of a contract? Kakashi quickly surveyed the faces of Tsunade and Jiraiya just to get maybe a hint of what was going on, but true to his beliefs, their faces showed absolutely no sign of anything save a solemnity.

Tsunade asked, "Why can't you seal it away?"

"The contract doesn't work like that," Naruto shook his head. "It'll come out in the end. Apparently one of the signers was a seal master."

Sakura, who was looking at the three, who knew what was going on, asked, "What's going on?"

Finally noticing her apprentice, Tsunade smiled wearily, "Sorry, Sakura, but I'll need you to leave the room."

Nodding, Sakura left with a backwards glance towards her shisou and her teammate.

Without looking at him, Tsunade asked, "Would you leave the room as well, Kakashi? This is something just between Naruto and me."

Kakashi, hiding behind his book, nodded as he jumped out the window, but staying nearby just in case there was something of importance he needed to know. It was still unusual, though, that Tsunade would keep something from him when it concerned Naruto.

Skimming through his memories, he smiled at the new Naruto. Naruto was certainly like his sensei now; to think that soon Naruto may leave the world all together and his sensei's legacy would be gone weighed heavily on his mind. Naruto was supposed to have come back maybe half a year ago, but Naruto and Jiraiya had stayed away for the full three years. Why did they? Did Jiraiya know something about what was happening with Akatsuki and Orochimaru that no one else knew about?

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Gosh, even without being there, Naruto could still bring him headaches.

There was still the issue of Naruto's skill. Since the boy had cut off Tsunade when she was about to announce his return to Kakashi's team, he had no idea where Naruto was skill-wise. It was impressive that he was applying for jounin status with seal mastery; no one had gotten a seal mastery since the Yondaime. For those that had tried to get a seal mastery, none of them were even remotely near mastery; personally, he hadn't even tried knowing the level of seal knowledge required for mastery.

Just the way that Naruto had moved for the short period that Kakashi had observed the blonde was enough to convey the power and speed the boy now had. His grace and skillful way of moving showed years of training and experience, but Naruto's open hands worried him.

At no point for the time that Kakashi had watched the boy had he clenched his hands at all. Sure he had closed his hands, but there was no accident and unconscious twitching of hands. Naruto appeared to be controlling his very basic instincts with willpower alone, which amazed the jounin.

"Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Kakashi glanced back into the Hokage's room to see Naruto and Jiraiya still standing there in front of Tsunade. Both Sannin looked troubled by whatever Naruto had said, and the jounin briefly wondered what Naruto had said.

Knowing that whatever they were keeping both him and Sakura out of was important, Kakashi sat down on the roof outside the window and read his new Icha Icha Tactics.

Jiraiya looked at the boy that he had been traveling with for the past three years. He certainly wasn't the boy that he was three years ago. Their journey had changed him too much for either of them to turn back; some things turned out for the better, some for the worse.

Thank goodness Naruto had lost the orange jumpsuit after they arrived at their first destination. He would have cried to the gods to spare him the pain if the boy hadn't gotten rid of that hideous thing called clothes. But then, Naruto's decision for a new outfit was a result of what happened as they were on their way to their destination, and it was no wonder that the boy did choose something that reflected the darkness of the world surrounding him.

Everyday for the past three years, he has been agonizing for what happened the first week away from Konoha. That it happened so close to Konoha still weighed terribly heavy on his mind, and that he had never thought to go back to Konoha for medical aid when he should have and when advised… he never got over it and probably never would.

That first week, though, had made the boy who he was today, and it was a heartwarming feeling to see the childish, loud-mouthed boy a strong and awe-inspiring young man. Though the first week had been hell for Jiraiya, the resolution that Naruto had come to at the end of that dreadful week was the result that Jiraiya could live with for all his pain and guilt.

Turning his attention back to Tsunade and Naruto, he heard Naruto continue on in his explanation, "The ones sent to capture me will have Hell to deal with when they try to capture me."

"You do know the full ramifications of the contract though, right, Naruto?" Tsunade asked in a concerned voice.

Naruto nodded and replied, "Don't worry. I have everything under control."

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya with a heavy look, and he could only shrug in response. He, after all that had happened, had taught the boy the best he could for three years, and there were some things that Naruto knew that he didn't, considering the fact that he had to leave the boy at their first destination so that both of them could recuperate from that first week and so Jiraiya could gather information.

Sighing, Tsunade moved the subject somewhere else. "Okay. I'll move you back onto active status, and I'll need to schedule a time to test you for your seal mastery."

The boy nodded in response with confidence and a smile on his face, his pride in his abilities evident on his face.

Jiraiya smiled; the one thing that he was certainly proud of was Naruto's mastery of seals. It seemed that all of Jiraiya's apprentices ended up being seal masters, both the Yondaime and Naruto. But the circumstances that led to Naruto's mastery of seals would always strike a nail through his heart.

"Just how are you going to test me?"

Tsunade looked up at the boy with slight surprise and smiled. She explained, "Since you're also applying for jounin status as well, you're going to have to show proficiency in all areas: ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu. I'll have several jounin sit in on a spar and have them evaluate your skills. After that, you'll have to present a seal that you created within the past year and demonstrate it."

Nodding in understanding with his famed vulpine face, he suddenly asked, "Can I present the seal now and request for a specific jounin to be at my test?"

She blinked in confusion and at the suddenness of the request. Mulling over the request, she said, "I don't see why not."

Jiraiya smirked. So the boy was going to present _that_ seal; that seal was definitely a hard one to create since there was no live seal specimen the boy could use to test his new seal on, so Naruto had to go off of whatever he remembered and whatever Jiraiya knew.

Naruto reached into his sleeves to pull out a very thick notebook and several papers on top of the notebook. He quickly explained, "The notebook is full of all the notes that I used to create the seal, and those papers are just the official documentation about the seal."

Raising an eyebrow looking at the boy in speculation, Tsunade picked up the official documentation and started reading it. The silence was refreshing for once as Tsunade read, and as she read on, her eyes widened, surprise and shock smack dab on her face. Pointing the papers at the Naruto, who smiled and remained calm, she asked, "You do realize that this has never been done before?"

"That's the exactly why I'm presenting this jutsu for my seal mastery."

"If it doesn't go according to plan, the subject will die and you'll have to face the full consequences. You know that right?"

The boy nodded.

Tsunade leaned back into her chair, threw the papers down on her desk, and glared at them before turning her glare to Jiraiya. "You just had to give him the idea, didn't you?"

Jiraiya shrugged and shoved the issue aside, "Technically, I didn't give him the idea. It was something he thought about while he was doing a training exercise. All I did was give him knowledge of the other seal."

She narrowed her eyes and asked suspiciously, "And why kind of training exercise would he be doing that led to this idea?"

All the Sannin could do was laugh in response and offer a weak response, "Water walking?"

_THWACK! BOOM!_

Naruto grimaced as his sensei went flying out of the Hokage's office through several walls of thick stone. He muttered to himself, "That has got to hurt."

Dusting off her hands, Tsunade turned to Naruto, who stood scared stiff. "Now, where was I? Oh yeah, your seal mastery." Her demeanor changing all of the sudden, she asked, "What about the safety precautions?"

"There's a safety net within that seal."

Both looked at the dusty and thoroughly beaten Sannin coming back in through the big holes in the walls. Rubbing a bruised cheek, Jiraiya glared fearfully at Tsunade as he explained, "The boy had no test subject for the seal since there were so few people that had the other seal, and right now there are only two people with those other seals."

Tsunade nodded in understanding. "Tell me about this safety net."

"Basically, the preliminary seal implements a fallback in case the first seal is linked too closely to the subject's charka system. The secondary seal will be the actual seal that destroys the first seal by fundamentally strangling the first seal, cutting it off from a charka supply, then nullifying the important points of the first seal. The final seal wraps everything up and prevents the first seal from ever being used again."

The entire room was quiet as both listened to Naruto's thorough explanation of his creation.

Finally, Tsunade blinked in stupefaction before smiling. "Well, I'll say."

Jiraiya smirked proudly at his apprentice. Sure enough, his latest apprentice was definitely going to get his seal mastery. The boy probably would get his jounin status as well; the only thing that he worried about was the boy's genjutsu. Everyone knew of Naruto's weakness when it came to genjutsu; he might be good enough to identify and break out of a genjutsu, but he like hell wasn't good enough to perform a jounin level genjutsu. He mentally sighed.

God, he really needed a drink.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

I'm finally finished… After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks… well you get the idea, this chapter has been finally finished. I've changed the entire story. I originally was going to start off where I had stopped, but then my computer just had to crash on me and I had to reformat the entire thing. I lost YEARS of work just from one single crash and I mopped around for weeks. Then just when I thought I was getting back onto my feet, my computer had to crash AGAIN and I had to reformat AGAIN, losing another round of hard work. Right now, I'm still afraid that my computer will crash and I have to survive through another experience of reformatting. I pray to whoever is up there in Heaven and to whatever is holy that my computer won't crash and won't have to need to be reformatted. That last sentence will just probably come back and bite me on the butt when I'm done with everything.

As I said, I'm rewriting the entire plotline of New Future of the Legends. The plotline will essentially stay the same but I'm rewriting the entire thing so that it'll feel a lot better as a story for me. I've really gotten into the use of point of views, and it gives some pretty good insights of what happened during the three years of Naruto's absence. I can't say that I have all the characters out of character, but I try to keep them canon. But the entire point of AU is that it is not canon. All of you can tell that I went by canon for some parts of the chapter, and I'll be using some events in canon but I'll be going by my timeline of AU.

Just about every break in the chapter signaled a change in point of view and if you can't tell whose point of view it is, I'll just say right now. It was: general/omniscient, Naruto without any use of his name, general/omniscient, Sakura, Tsunade, Kakashi, and finally Jiraiya. For a while I was thinking of using Konohamaru's point of view, but decided not to because there was no point of using his point of view save to show how much Naruto has changed. I'll probably do that in another chapter if Konohamaru ever comes back into the picture, which I'm sure he will.

Jounin status is basically when a shinobi is trying out for special jounin, like Anko and Ibiki are special jounin. Technically, Naruto won't be a full-fledged jounin until he takes the Jounin exams, but he'll still be called a jounin since he's a special jounin.

You'll find out about the seal that Naruto made in later chapters. I'll explain more of it when it comes time for Naruto to demonstrate it.

I tried not to make Naruto too super strong, since then there wouldn't be too much conflict in the story. I know it seemed that he is very powerful, but he's only powerful in some aspects. Like how I put in with Jiraiya's point of view, I emphasized Naruto's weakness with genjutsu so he isn't totally strong like I made him out to be in the previous version of New Future of the Legends. Hopefully, that'll make Naruto more bearable for those that don't really like him all too powerful. I'm really trying to balance out Naruto's character and power right now, but it's really hard when I come face to face with my fangirlism.

So, I hope that you liked this brand new revised chapter. It'll probably be in the next month that I put up the next chapter. I'm very busy with school and homework nowadays, and I still have to fix up my website since I haven't done anything with it since last year. I haven't done anything to this longer than I have with my website so I thought for the loyal Naruto fans out there that I'd do this first.

If you have any questions or concerns that you need me to address immediately, just email me or send a review (which I really want by the way) and I'll try to respond as quick as I can. Just to let you know, I'll probably address all questions in my author's notes or in the story itself, so don't worry too much about some things.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me.

Review!


	2. Fought Battles Often Unfought

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter Two: Fought Battles Often Unfought**

* * *

"Sakura-san?"

Darkness faded away slowly as a blurry figure appeared in the bright light. Wincing, she could only see a tall and dark form surrounded by light. The shaking she somehow had grown accustomed to during her sleep continued as it little by little woke her up. She asked dazedly and softly, "Who is that?"

"Sakura-san?"

Gradually, the light around the figure dimmed as the world came back into focus. Gradually, she saw dark, long hair surrounding a very familiar face and finally her eyes adjusted to the dimming light. Wearily, she blinked as her eyes focused on the figure. She slowly and carefully asked, "Shi…zune-san?"

A smile grew upon Shizune's face, but she still repeated, "Sakura-san?"

"Hai… Shizune-san?"

"Tsunade-sama wants to see you."

Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Sakura sat up and yawned widely before looking around confusedly. This wasn't where she remembered she last was. She remembered getting a missive from her shisou and coming to the Hokage Tower, but after that, she couldn't remember anything. Apparently, she had fallen asleep while she was waiting for Tsunade to finish up whatever work she was doing.

Sakura nodded and got up, stretching her taut muscles. Waiting to completely wake up, she nodded to Shizune, who smiled and waited to accompany her to Tsunade's office. "Was Tsunade-shisou busy?"

"Very," Shizune replied. "She had some visitors earlier. You were already here asleep when the visitors came up, so Tsunade-sama decided to let you rest. You've had a stressful year."

Upon reaching the door, Shizune opened it for her while calling out, "Shitsureshimashita."

Passing Shizune, Sakura nodded her thanks and left Shizune to close the door behind her. That Shizune wasn't accompanying her in front of Tsunade meant that whatever Tsunade called her there was very important. Tsunade usually did that whenever there were major events about to happen.

She stopped in front of Tsunade's desk and waited patiently. "You asked for me, Tsunade-sama?"

Looking up, Tsunade smiled as she laid down the papers she was looking at. She nodded and beckoned Sakura to step closer.

Stepping closer, Sakura could make out the slight worry lines wrinkling around her shisou's eyes. The light in her eyes was dimmer than yesterday, so that meant something happened recently that caused her to be in such a state. It wasn't too unusual to see her like this though; she was only like this once a year, but Sakura could never figure out why.

"Have you already finished your duties at the hospital, Sakura?"

"Hai," Sakura promptly replied, slightly dreading exactly why Tsunade had called her in alone. Better get the small talk out of the way.

Tsunade examined her face closely but didn't say anything before leaning back into the chair, obviously not satisfied with anything. Tilting her head to one side, she seemed to listen to something that wasn't said, or least something that Sakura couldn't hear. Nodding to herself, Tsunade suddenly asked, "Are you busy tomorrow, Sakura?"

Sakura shook her head slowly, unsure of what was going on. Tsunade rarely asked her if she was busy, since it was always her job to see if she was busy or not. The only times that Tsunade did ask was when Tsunade had to leave the office for sometime and needed someone to do her paperwork for her.

Immediately, Tsunade's face broke out into a wide grin. Happily, she exclaimed quickly as she rose to her feet, "That's great! Now, I want you to go to the Hishin Dojo tomorrow at one. We'll have a very special guest there, so don't be late." She pushed a confused Sakura towards the door.

Blinking unbelievingly, Sakura looked up at Tsunade's glowing face. "What?"

"Hishin Dojo, tomorrow at one. Don't be late!"

With that, Sakura was literally pushed out of the Hokage's office, and the door slammed in her face. She stared at the closed door in shock and stepped back to take a better look at the door before walking away.

Feeling slightly slighted by her shisou, Sakura grumbled about stupid errands. It wasn't unusual that Tsunade would call her to greet guests since she was the Hokage's apprentice but it was weird that Tsunade would call her in alone just for that person… unless the person was truly and very important.

Phht… As if… Tsunade just probably called her in alone just so that Shizune would think that she had to do something really important. But then… why did Tsunade kick her out of the office so quickly?

She glanced back at the door to the Hokage's office. "Tsunade-sama is acting very weird."

* * *

"Hatake-san."

Kakashi looked up from staring at the memorial. Closing the infamous orange book and putting it away, he turned to look at the speaker. Just an ANBU. "Hm?"

"Hokage-sama needs to see you."

"Hm."

"You're late."

"Hm."

"She was supposed to see you three hours ago, Hatake-san."

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Kakashi took just a moment longer staring at the memorial before nodding and walking off. As he passed the ANBU member, he said, "Tell her I'm coming."

The ANBU just nodded and disappeared, not a trace of ever being there left.

Leisurely, Kakashi walked the streets pausing every now and then. Once, he caught sight of both Asuma and Kurenai turning a corner and was about to call out to them, but he decided to leave them be. A while later, he saw Shikamaru and Temari patrolling the streets; he did nod to them but walked by sans a word.

He glanced down at his watch; he had only been walking ten or fifteen minutes.

Stopping in front of the bookstore, he stared at the latest edition of the Icha Icha Paradise series and couldn't help but feel a twinge that something was not right. He stayed there staring at the book for who knows how long, but it wasn't too long. Giving a lasting look at the book, he walked away.

He looked down at his watch; he was late by another thirty minutes.

Just walking down the streets, he felt uncomfortable; he hadn't felt discomfort of this sort since when his father died. Turning his head from side to side, he observed his surroundings as he passed by. Laughter and happiness permeated the air, so there was no reason for his paranoia.

Then why was he paranoid?

Of course, he had to be paranoid but this kind of paranoia annoyed him.

Focusing his senses, he tried to pinpoint from where his source of paranoia came only to find nothing.

Mentally retracing his steps, there was no paranoia when he left the memorial, but he did feel slightly uncomfortable. There was nothing to say that something went wrong; there was only that discomfort. Both uncomfortable and paranoid, he started again on his route to the Hokage's office.

Not long passed when he reached the Hokage's office but on his way, he felt eyes watching his every motion. He hadn't sensed anything as he walked to the office, but once he stepped inside, his shinobi senses went haywire. Calmly analyzing the situation and even though he couldn't feel any different chakra signature, he casually made his way up to Tsunade's office.

Shizune met him halfway there and escorted him, though he didn't really need her to. They passed Sakura asleep on a bench near Tsunade's office. Shizune only said that Tsunade had called her in and she apparently fell asleep while waiting. Despite the fact that it was unusual for Sakura for to fall asleep in the middle of the day, it was understandable; she was a medic-nin and tended to lack sleep. So they decided to leave her there until Tsunade needed her immediately.

Kakashi held the door open as Shizune went inside and followed after shaking away the brief sensation of déjà vu.

Tsunade sat behind her desk and for once calmly and efficiently going through the piles of papers around her desk.

"Hokage-sama?"

She gave the silver-haired jounin a hurried glare before finishing the papers she was working on. Setting down the inkbrush, she folded her hands together and looked at him.

With an eyebrow raised at her silent behavior, he put it off as one of her weird moments; he knew that she was prone to them during this time of year, marking another year of his students' departure from Konoha.

"Are you busy tomorrow, Kakashi?"

He stared at her. That was certainly unexpected. To summon him on his off-duty day just to ask whether he was busy when she controlled whether or not he was busy was just unusual even if today was one of Tsunade's strange days.

"I believe— "

"Doesn't matter anymore!" Tsunade said, her tone leaving no room for arguing. "Hishin Dojo, tomorrow at ten. Be prepared to fight. Now get out."

Kakashi simply nodded and walked out. Now, _that_ was how Tsunade was supposed to act. He didn't have much time to ponder too much over Tsunade's odd request; he had to really get rid of the feeling of eyes on his back.

He turned his attention away from all that though. A pink blush appeared and a perverted giggle followed after he opened his three-year-old edition of Icha Icha Paradise volume two. '_Hehe…'_

* * *

"Was all that really necessary?"

Tsunade turned to the spot that she knew both Jiraiya and Naruto stood, and the genjutsu that hid both of them fell apart revealing two grimfaced males. No one that entered the room had noticed them there, though several, like Kakashi, felt a different chakra than the usual ones. It was only a credit to Naruto's genjutsu abilities, but unfortunately, that was the only genjutsu the blonde boy could effectively do.

Naruto glared at Jiraiya. "Yes, it was. If Ero-Sennin hadn't sent a note saying that we were going to be back today, I wouldn't have had to seal their memories."

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes back at his student. He crossed his arms, "If you had told your sensei what your plan was, I wouldn't have messed it up."

"If you had told me that we were returning to Konoha today, I would have told you my plan."

"If you hadn't run around town all day, I would have told you that we were."

"If you hadn't been peeking at the women's bath, I wouldn't have run around all day."

"ENOUGH!"

The males looked at Tsunade, a vein pulsating violently on her forehead. She grit out, "What's done is done. We can't do anything about it. Now, would you both stop arguing so we can get on with what we have to do?"

The two immediately straightened and saluted her comically. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

Sighing, she could only feel old for reprimanding the two two-year-old-acting males. What did she do to deserve this?

"As I was saying before you two imbeciles rudely interrupted," she growled out, "I need to know why it was that necessary for the memories of several of my shinobi to be sealed away."

With a serious expression, Naruto simply nodded and pulled out yet another scroll from the depths of his kimono sleeves. Tsunade noted that the boy just kept on pulling out more and more scrolls and papers from those seals and that he didn't carry a pack anymore. Apparently, he learned to seal equipment into storage seals made within his kimono sleeves. Inwardly, she praised him for his well-thought out tactic: enemies would never guess what would come out of his sleeves.

Taking the scroll, she unfurled it and quickly read over the seal process as Naruto explained the procedure. "It's a combination of the Yamanaka clan's Shintenshin no Jutsu and a seal, but my mind is never transferred into the mind of the target."

When Naruto raised a hand to ruffle his hair, Tsunade noticed his tense stance though didn't make any comments, pretending that she hadn't seen his nervous gesture.

"You saw in the ritual room that I had drew the entire seal out in a circle from their bodies. Well, in the circle, I had to write out exactly what needed to be sealed away. It's not as easy as it sounds: the seal itself is pretty straightforward; knowing how to get to the memory without damaging the rest of the mind is that hard part."

"Tell me exactly how you go about getting to a single memory." Gesturing to the scroll she had laid out in front of her, she told him, "I understand the seal itself; there's nothing wrong with it and it is workable save for that variable," pointing to one specific portion of the seal.

Naruto peered at where she was pointing to and shifted uncomfortably. "Well… blood is placed on twelve points on the target's body," moving his hand to point exactly where, "forehead, collarbone, left and right wrists, diaphragm, abdomen, left and right kidneys, center of the back opposite of point for the diaphragm, and on the back where the heart is."

She nodded but scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. "Why exactly those points?"

"The people that trained me knew a lot about the connection between mind and body. Those twelve points, if pressed simultaneously, can cause a person to spill anything and everything if asked to do so by the person whose blood is on those points. Blood is a projection of one's self and can only follow the wishes of the originator, so blood is used to control the mind."

Tsunade's mind raced with possibilities. All this was new information; as a medic-nin, she knew about the mind and body but never focused on controlling one with the other. She saw moreover to the demands of the body rather the mind, but she still knew mind techniques. This new information could bring more ways of interrogating prisoners and spies with a lesser chance of misinformation.

"Can anyone use this technique?"

Unfortunately, both Jiraiya and Naruto shook their heads, and the older man started to explain for Naruto. "It takes years of training to perfect the movement of blood separated from the body and to refine the mental focus."

Almost immediately, she leveled a cynical look on Jiraiya. "You're telling me that that boy," pointing to Naruto, "has a mental focus so refined that it usually take years for normal shinobi to achieve?"

Jiraiya only shakily laughed. "Maybe?"

Shaking her head, she waved for them to continue. Naruto continued, "With the blood as a connection, I can control the chakra in the blood to search out the memories that I'm looking for and then the seal will lock away the memory. The chakra will keep on searching and the seal locking until the chakra can find no more, then the rest of the seal will refine the edges of the sealed memories so that it seems nothing out of the normal. And after all that, we just have to put them in a logical place before waking them up, and they'll go about their life as normal without the locked memories."

Head nodding in understanding, she reviewed what Naruto said and pointed out, "It doesn't stop paranoia though, does it?"

Sadly, Naruto shook his head, "There's only so much the seal can do; the seal only focuses on the explicit memory, not implicit memory."

"So then you know that Kakashi could sense you through his paranoia."

He nodded and smiled grimly. "Still, the memories of everyone that saw me today needed to be sealed away. Naturally, if any news came out, the Council would rain down on us like a dog on food."

Tsunade leaned back into her chair and breathed out loudly. Massaging her temples, she couldn't believe that she had actually let the boy seal dozens of people's memories, but she knew that she had to in order to protect him. She kept on reminding herself: rights of others limit the rights of one. Those memories would be harmful to Naruto if the news that he was back ever came out.

She glared at Jiraiya, who cringed in fear instinctively. Damn Jiraiya, always had to mess up something intentionally or accidentally. Suddenly bringing the news that they were returning was a bad idea. After all, Akatsuki was still after Naruto, and with all the new things that both had learned over the years, undoubtedly, they gained several new enemies.

"Is there anyway that you can disguise yourself and your chakra signature?"

Immediately, Naruto grinned widely and gave her two thumbs up. "Don't worry, Tsunade-bachan. It's all taken care off."

Raising an eyebrow, she nodded, secretly anticipating whatever new surprise Naruto would concoct. Opening one of the drawers to her right, she stuck her hand into the deep mess of papers and fished out a loop of keys, throwing them to Naruto.

Slightly surprised, he fumbled for a moment before he had them secure in his hands. He looked down at the keys before returning his mildly confused gaze to her. Smiling, she waved her hand in dismissal.

"I'll call several proctors and several Council to be present for your evaluation tomorrow. Make sure your disguise is foolproof, boy. I especially don't want Hyuuga Hiashi to harp on me about you."

His face burst out in a smile and trotted towards the door. "Then, I'll see ya later, ba-chan."

Tsunade waved a small goodbye and waited for the door to close before she turned to Jiraiya. Leveling an even stare, she ordered, "Tell me."

* * *

Occasionally, she turned back to look at the Hokage Tower where her shisou had abruptly thrown her out. Pouting, she still couldn't figure out why she had been thrown out. Sure she had fallen asleep waiting, but Tsunade-sama would never kick her out the way she did just because of a little nap… or would she? Hypocritical, but she was the Hokage, so nothing else mattered.

Her hands unconsciously clenching, she decided to go over to Ino's. She was itching for something to do; might as well take it on Ino. A spar wouldn't be that bad of an idea either. Now, only if Ino were at home…

Sensing a familiar chakra signature nearby, she spun around and broke out into a smile. She waited for the duo to stop in front of her before asking, "Patrolling again?"

The lower ranked just combed a hand through his hair and mumbled, "It's too troublesome to argue with Hokage-sama."

Immediately, Temari smacked the chuunin on the back of the head. "Everything's too troublesome for you. Lazy ass." Once sure Shikamaru wasn't going to say anymore, she glanced at the medic-nin. "What are you doing?"

"I just came out of a meeting with Tsunade-shisou, and I'm heading over to Ino's."

The Suna kunoichi furrowed her eyebrows and said, "I thought I saw you going to that meeting several hours ago. Was the meeting that long?"

Sakura shook her head and blushed lightly. This was so hard to admit; maybe it would be better if she didn't say anything. "No… I just… um… fell asleep."

Silence…

This was even better than admitting that she had fallen asleep while waiting for the Hokage.

Thank God… only Temari burst out laughing, tears threatening to stream down her face. Between breaths, she gasped out, "You fell… asleep?"

"This is too troublesome."

Doing a 180 in attitude, Temari growled and again smacked Shikamaru. "Ass." With a smile on her face, Temari nodded in understanding. "You're a medic-nin and Hokage-sama's apprentice so you're more likely to fall asleep. I'm sure the Hokage didn't trouble you for falling asleep?"

Sakura nodded, still with a faint blush. "Yeah, but it's so embarrassing."

"So why did she call you in?"

Instantly, she turned towards the Hokage Tower and glared at Tsunade's office. Not really yelling at Tsunade, she shouted out, "What was your problem, Tsunade-shisou?"

Both shinobi beside her sweat dropped and stared at her, taken back by the sudden outburst.

Holding up a fist to the Hokage Tower, she turned back to the other two and grumbled darkly, "She just told me there would be an important guest at the Hishin Dojo and to be there at one, then she practically kicked me out of her office."

Shikamaru frowned, confused. "That's odd. Hokage-sama usually would beg for us to stay just so she wouldn't have to do paperwork."

Sakura nodded in agreement and added, "Tsunade-shisou also didn't let Shizune into the room when she was talking to me."

_Flap… flap…_

All three shinobi looked up to the sky and spotted a bird flying hurriedly towards the Hyuuga estates. They frowned and looked at each other.

She looked back to the bird. That bird. The Hokage only used that bird when she was summoning the Council to a special session or to a really important meeting. Turning to Shikamaru, she remembered that Shikaku, Shikamaru's father and the head of the Nara clan, was on the Council; briefly, she wondered if the missive Tsunade was sending out had anything to do with the guest at the Hishin Dojo.

Abruptly, Temari asked, "What's the Hishin Dojo?"

Brought back to reality, she answered promptly, "It's a dojo for elite jounins that must pay for membership a year before they can go into the dojo itself. It's a really elite dojo that only the top jounins can get into since the yearly membership payment is outrageous."

"Why this dojo?"

"This dojo is just about the best dojo in all of Konoha. The keepers of the dojo keep everything in tip top shape; you won't find a single flaw in maintenance."

"Except the outrageous price," mumbled Shikamaru, who was without delay smacked again.

Noticing that the conversation was ending, Sakura took a step back to indicate it was really ending and she was leaving. Raising a hand, she waved to them. "Well, you two better get back to patrolling. I wouldn't want Tsunade-shisou to start yelling at you for not doing your job."

Temari nodded while Shikamaru rubbed his head in annoyance, "Troublesome women."

_Smack!_

* * *

"Shikamaru."

Casually, he had to turn around. His father's tone left no room for defiance even though he just wanted to get to his bed and sleep. Stepping into the kitchen, he grabbed the nearest chair and flopped down into it, immediately laying his head down in his arms to fall into a semi-conscious doze.

"Konnichiwa, Nara-san."

Shikamaru opened one eye to see his Team 10 sensei walk in with his father before he closed it and tried to pretend that he was already asleep. Keyword: _tried._

A hand came down on Shikamaru's shoulder and shook him. "I know you're not asleep, you lazy brat. Get up."

With his eyes still close, he rolled his eyes inside his skull and opened them to see both Asuma and Shikaku sitting down on both sides of him. Mentally, he couldn't help but wonder why everyone was so adamant on keeping him from sleep. These were the times that he wished for old times when he would do nothing but sleep.

But ever since he got promoted to chuunin and the constant blonde bundle-of-annoying-joy left, everything had gone to hell.

Shikaku immediately started off the conversation, seeing that his son was on the verge of returning to sleep. "I got a missive from the Hokage saying that she needed your presence at the Hishin Dojo at one tomorrow."

That surprised Shikamaru. "She sent you the missive? Why not me?"

"You were patrolling with that Suna kunoichi."

Nodding, he laid his head into his arms and again tried to get some sleep. And once more, keyword: _tried._

"Shikamaru."

They could only see the nodding of the boy's head, believing that he was still listening. So they continued talking, only to realize a few minutes later that the boy had stopped nodding and was now snoring softly. Leaving the rightly tired chuunin to his peace, they took their conversation elsewhere.

* * *

To the villagers of Konohagakure no Sato, the next day was brighter and warmer, which was literally not true since the weather was the same. The air surrounding the village was just cleaner and easier to breathe in than yesterday. The market was full with civilians buying groceries and other necessities, and among the crowd was the occasional shinobi keeping the peace.

"Now really, Tsunade-sama, why are out this early? The evaluation isn't until one o'clock."

Tsunade glared at the boy. He was dressed in another black kimono and white hakama with flames sans the kanji on the back; unfortunately, he wasn't disguised yet. After all, she had woken the poor boy just half an hour ago. The only problem was that she had woken him half an hour before one.

"Gaki, if I hadn't woken you, you would have been late like your good-for-nothing genin instructor."

Naruto immediately pouted and remarked. "Don't put me in the same boat as Kakashi-sensei!"

Again, she gave him a death glare, and he cringed in defeat.

Both were on their way towards the Hishin Dojo with only a few minutes to spare before being tardy, but neither in a hurry to get there. Somehow to both their amazement, no one had taken a glance in their direction, even with Tsunade's aptitude at being spotted for being Hokage. Their journey to the elite training ground was in relatively quiet save for Naruto's occasional questions about the Rookie 9.

"Ne, Tsunade-bachan, I'm fighting Kakashi-sensei, aren't I?"

Tsunade nodded in answer. "I didn't think it would be fair in the eyes of the proctors if I sparred with you, so Kakashi would be one of the best viable choices."

Naruto, in agreement, asked as they slowed down and stopped at the door of the dojo, "Exactly what should I not do during the spar?"

A keeper opened the door of the dojo from the inside and peeked out from the small crack to peer at Tsunade's looming face. He smiled seeing Tsunade's face and opened the door wider to let both inside the compound. One way or another, the keeper didn't notice Naruto's entrance and seeing how he didn't notice Naruto period, Naruto had to quickly slide through.

"Konnichiwa, Hokage-sama. We have the field prepared for your use."

Nodding approvingly, Tsunade bowed slightly. "Then, please lead the way."

"Hai."

The keeper didn't take them far. Once inside the compound, they went through the first door in front of them and stepped into a training area fit for the evaluation.

It was huge. The area was clean; the field was unmarred by any previous combat; everything was perfect. It was like a courtyard within the compound designed specifically for combat. To one side of the open corridor, there were several cushions for the evaluators and a tea set by each as refreshments.

Naruto whistled an impressed air and Tsunade just nodded in agreement with the standards. The keepers really did keep their dojo in top shape, and it really was no wonder that this dojo was one of the top dojo in Konoha.

"Is it to your liking, Hokage-sama?"

Seeing that the keeper was waiting for her answer, she just plaintively nodded and he scurried away after indicating two waiting rooms to the side.

Once the keeper was out of sight, Naruto spoke up. "It was odd that no one noticed me."

"What? I thought you knew something about no one noticing you."

He shook his head but tilted his head to side with a questioning air. "But maybe…" holding his kimono sleeve up and peering down at it, he continued, "it's because of my kimono. My mentors did say that all the kimonos they gave me were special."

Frowning, Tsunade noted the fact and pushed it aside for other things. "You asked what you aren't allowed to do during the spar." Naruto gave a nod and Tsunade started a list. "You can't kill, can't permanently maim, can't cause damage that will scar, can't torture. You know, the usual sparring rules."

"Apparently," Naruto started and caught Tsunade's immediate attention, "I don't really follow the usual sparring rules since the sparring _rule_ for the past three years of my life has been: everything goes. So you're going to have to explain to me the way the usual shinobi sparring rules again."

She immediately scowled at the boy who flippantly waved aside eminent threat. "Don't kill. Don't main. Don't cause damage that will scar. Don't torture. Got it, gaki?"

He returned a mock scowl. "Got it, baabaa."

Both their heads shot up in the next second and turned to look at one another. Quickly and quietly, Naruto slid into one of the prepared waiting rooms to don his disguise, in case the person that both had sensed was indeed a Hyuuga, one of the two that were invited.

Quietly, Tsunade whispered past the shouji door. "There's another chakra signature close by. I think it's Sakura. You better hurry, gaki."

"Hm," grumbled Naruto behind the paper door before retreating further into the waiting room.

"Hokage-sama."

Abruptly but not suddenly, Tsunade whirled around to face a scarred faced jounin before greeting him warmly. "Ah, Shikato, you're here."

Over the years, Nara Shikato hadn't changed much in three years. There were a few more age lines on his forehead and around his eyes. His hard eyes glinted in the overbearing light of the noon sun, and his clothes seemed to be more ragged than three years ago. Not that she blamed him; ever since the attack by Sound and Sand, shinobi were pushed to their limits to sustain Konoha's economy.

Shikato nodded grimly. "I told my son to get his lazy ass here."

Tsunade was just about to open her mouth when she sighted her apprentice walking towards them. "Sakura."

Walking up to them and bowing appropriately to both, Sakura greeted them with a warm smile. "Konnichiwa, Tsunade-shisou, Nara-san." She glanced around before asking, "Has our guest arrived yet?"

After indicating that the guest had indeed arrived, she moved them to sit down, and they did so, folding their legs to sit seiza. Taking the seat to Shikato's left, she said, "I'll wait until the others arrive before giving out formal instructions."

"Hokage-sama."

"Hiashi."

The calm collected Hyuuga, wearing a formal kimono, befitting his status as the Hyuuga Clan Head and as a Council Member, his forehead pressed with more wrinkles from the passing of time, merely nodded in acknowledgement before sitting down on the other side of Tsunade, Neji, who hadn't said a word, following suit, nodding his greeting, and sitting down on the other side of Hiashi.

Neji wore an outfit similar to a kimono, though it could be moreover described as an amalgamation of traditional and modern. He took on a more traditional Hyuuga look, growing taller, his hair still tied together at the middle with a white band. His appearance and posture screamed formality as this was an official and quite formal event, despite the rest of the audience's casual appearance.

"Tsunade-shisou," Sakura began as she peered around Shikato to look at her shisou, "for whom are we waiting?"

"Mitokado Homura, Utatane Koharu, Inuzuka Tsume, Nara Shikamaru, Maito Gai, and Hatake Kakashi."

"So troublesome…"

Three heads turned, the Hyuuga obviously using their renowned Byakugan to identify the newest character though not really necessary. His (in)famous phrase always preceded him, so everyone in the room knew that the chuunin arrived. Flopping down onto the seat behind Sakura, Shikamaru nodded his recognition of his father, the Hokage, and the Hyuuga head.

Neji, in the meantime, turned to look at his uncle and said in a questioning tone, "Hiashi-sama?"

Hiashi merely nodded, and Neji got to his feet before settling beside Shikamaru with his legs tucked underneath him, compared to Shikamaru's very casual way of sitting.

"Konnichiwa."

Once more, people's heads turned to sight the newest newcomer. Inuzuka Tsume looked just as wild as ever, her hair untamed, and an almost feral smirk threatening to appear on her lips. Kuromaru was visibly absent, and before the others could ask where he was, she told them. "Kuromaru said that he didn't want to stay in the area. Something about this place being suddenly different."

Immediately, everyone's minds sped through the possibilities of what Kuromaru meant. Tsunade controlled all her vital signs, knowingly aware that the Inuzuka would catch even the slightest spike of fear, but her mind raced, suddenly wondering if Naruto's plan was really going to work.

"WE ARE HERE, MY ETERNAL RIVAL! THIS YOUTHFUL ARENA WILL BE THE GLORIOUS BATTLEGROUND THAT DECIDES WHO TRULY IS THE MOST YOUTHFUL! THE FLAMES OF PASSIONATE YOUTH SHALL GLOW STRONG!"

Everyone sweat dropped (including Hiashi, who admitted one of the two things that scared him most was the approaching and obviously insane jounin).

"What did you say?"

"YOUR HIP ATTITUDE WILL NEVER DETER THE FLAMES OF YOUTH THAT BURN ETERNALLY WITHIN ME!"

A bored Kakashi came walking towards them with a Gai that was on the verge of jumping up and down. Kakashi waved to them before returning to his orange book and then realized there were three females in the vicinity; he quickly put the book away and looked around innocently. "So when are we starting?"

Reining in her temper, Tsunade forced out, "As soon as our guest is ready."

"All done, Tsunade."

They all turned to see their guest when the younger members of the audience (Neji included) went slackjawed.

"Ohayo gozaimasu"

Tsunade smirked and introduced the newest arrival. "Meet Tsurugi Tenkou."

Blinking, Sakura leaned over to her jounin sensei and whispered her question, "Kakashi-sensei, who is this person?"

"A really cute girl."

With the same smirk on her face, his superior turned to him and remarked, "Actually, Tenkou is a boy."

"SHE'S A BOY?"

Tenkou held his sleeve to his mouth and giggled. Everyone immediately sweat dropped. '_Nope. Not possible. This person is a GIRL!'_

The young man was dressed in a white kimono that made him look too much like a girl. From the split-toe sandals to the long gorgeous black hair that reached his ankles, it was easily understandable why he was often mistaken for a girl. The cerulean blue eyes twinkled underneath the frame of luxurious sable hair. His skin was flawless and unmarred by anything, and the only indication of him being a shinobi was the black headband that went across his forehead.

He didn't carry any weapons with him, not that he needed any. The way that he carried himself was different from anyone they knew: graceful and calm. Even if he wasn't anything else, this _boy_ was still the prettiest person they had ever seen.

Getting up from her seat, Tsunade walked up to Tenkou and hissed furiously into his ear. "Gaki, what the hell are you trying to pull? You look like a girl!"

His face immediately changed into a scowl. "What the hell does it look like? I'm trying to make this look good, so just shut up and let me do my job."

She raised an eyebrow at his words but let things lie. After all, this occurrence may not turn out so bad.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

OMG. I know I said that I would have this chapter up by the end of February or March, but now look, it's nearing the end of May and I've finally finished this chapter. I think I'm just going to write chapters that are 15 pages long since this one is 15 pages long, just like the last one was 15 pages and a bit. I've basically cut out the entire fight scene from this chapter. This chapter was supposed to be so much longer, and if I decide to forgo having an interlude, I just might edit this chapter again but just adding the interlude onto the end of this chapter.

So… the next chapter will be a long interlude with just the fight scene. It'll also probably be a continuation of Chapter 2 if you want to think that way, but you won't have to read it until the very end since it'll start something that'll be quite important. I didn't think I would have to make an interlude or anything of the sort, but I just keep on writing and it keeps on getting longer and longer by the second.

I'm finishing up my exams and finals, or well, starting them. I'll be done with them by the 25th of this month, then I'll be free to write more, but I'll also be working so not as much. I'm probably so adamant on writing because there are no good interesting fanfictions for me to read any more, so writing it is.

Since I haven't gone over the notes that I used to make this chapter, I'll later update this chapter will anything that you might need to know to understand the plot better.

This is a short A/N, so I'll just leave it this short.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me.

Review!


	3. Interlude: Revelations Aught Not Be

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gamil(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Interlude: Revelations Aught Not Be Discovered**

* * *

Sakura studied the newcomer. He certainly was strange; she had never met someone as girly as him. Sure there were plenty of girly men in Konoha, but none of them came close to this man's definition of feminism.

She watched him take out a white band to tie up his long black hair. He certainly was very precise in his motions, not wasting a single ounce of energy on any one motion. First, she attributed this to his shinobi training, but mulling over this, she realized that no shinobi ever moved that precisely even with years of experience and training.

He took out a white band to tie back his long black hair. Her eyes drifted up to his hitai-ate with the Konoha symbol etched into it, indicating he was a Konoha shinobi, but she never knew someone like him, past or present.

She thought it was strange that Tsunade had gotten up from her seat to furiously whisper in this newcomer's ear, and thought it was even stranger when Tsunade backed away without concessions. Whoever this new person was, he certainly had the ear of the Hokage.

Staring avidly at him, she furrowed her brows in confusion; tilted her head to jog her memory. Scrounging through her memory, she could remember ever see him, meaning he could possibly older than anyone of them. Seeing how her shisou also hid her age, she shrugged the matter off; after all, bird of a feather flock together.

Tsurugi Tenkou slipped off his zori and stood on the dusty cement in just his tabi. With the strangely formal clothes, he was oddly at ease with the bulkiness of a formal kimono, and he was not hindered by the ungainliness of the kimono, which was not at all common. Shinobi were known for their great detest for formal events where they would have to dress up, but for a shinobi to casually wear formal clothes, it was strange thing in a strange world.

Looking up at her sensei, who stood by her and observing his opponent, she noted the carefree and aloof look and the hidden motive of his observations: to determine how strong Tsurugi was. Swallowing, she murmured up to her sensei, "Kakashi-sensei, what do you think of him?"

Kakashi glanced at her and shrugged.

She narrowed her eyes on him, annoyed. Why did she have to have a sensei that had no sense of propriety when asked a question? Someone up there must positively hate her.

"Why are we still waiting?" Tsume asked abruptly. Sakura turned to look at the mother of one of fellow shinobi. Tsume flopped down with little to no manners, but still having a respectful air, and looked towards Tsunade for answers.

Clearing her throat, Tsunade answered, "We're waiting for Homura and Koharu."

"Those old coots?"

Shikaku easily reprimanded the dog jounin. "You shouldn't call them that, Tsume. Even though they _are_ old coots, they still have some power over us."

Tsume scowled but didn't say anything more.

"Thank you, Nara-kun. Just as respectful to your elders as always."

Everyone turned towards the two arrivals. Both Homura and Koharu, in Sakura's opinion, looked as old as ever. Though they had mellowed out over the years, they still were stiff and cold. In the back of her mind, she attributed their character to the harsh conditions of the world that they lived in as children, but she never actively looked at their character in that fashion, so it was easier to see them as old coots.

"Homura. Kiharu. We were waiting for you."

The two old geezers sat down in the seats that both Tsunade and Shikaku, who offered his own seat, vacated, regardless of manners or propriety. A faint tick appeared on Sakura's forehead, but controlling her temper, she didn't say anything offensive that would risk her position.

Surprisingly, Tsurugi actually bowed respectfully to the elders and greeted them. "Ohayo gozaimasu, Utatane-san, Mitakado-san."

Casting a suspicious eye on the subject of evaluation, the two merely nodded and indicated that they were prepared for the evaluation.

Sakura looked at the shinobi in question, who tapped his foot against the dusty ground. It was easy to see that though his face showed no outwards irritation, other parts of his body portrayed his irritation, and it made this feminine boy seem a bit more real.

Moving out of her own seat, which she offered to Tsunade, she sat with Neji and Shikamaru in the second row of sitting mats. From the corner of her eye, she watched the scene between Gai, Kakashi, and Tsurugi.

* * *

Naruto watched the (one-sided) conversation between Kakashi and Gai, and it was starting to really get on his nerves. Outwardly, he couldn't show it thought, and that irritated him even more. Exactly how was he supposed to keep up his façade if these two idiots wouldn't stop doing what they were doing?

"LET US BEGIN, MY ETERNAL RIVAL!"

"What?"

"ARG! YOUR HIP ATTITUTE IRRITATES ME, BUT IT WILL NOT PREVENT MY YOUTHFUL FIRE FROM PREVAILING!"

"Ano," began Naruto hesitantly, not really sure of how his character would react to this situation. "Could—"

"What are you doing here, Gai?"

"I WILL TRIUMPH TODAY AND PROVE THAT THE FLAME OF YOUTH BURNS THE STRONGEST!"

"—you two—"

"Whatever you say."

"I CHALLENGE YOU, MY ETERNAL RIVAL!"

"—please—"

"What kind of challenge?"

"ANY CHALLENGE THAT WILL PROVE THAT MY FLAME OF YOUTH IS UNDYING!"

"—get off—"

"Hmm… That's a hard choice."

"I WILL PREVAIL THROUGH ANY OBSTACLES YOU PUT BEFORE ME!"

"—the field?"

Seeing that neither of the idiots was listening to him, he decided to take things into his own hands. _Literally._

"Huh?"

_POW! KABOOM! SMASH!_

Those that were watching the scene winced and gave the two jounin sympathetic looks, understanding their pain or least feeling their pain.

Dusting his hands, Naruto glared at the two menacingly, "Now, would you two please remove your bodies from the field?"

"Hai!"

Well at least Gai got off the field and sat with the rest of the audience. Kakashi shook the loose dirt of his clothes and peered at him.

* * *

This shinobi was different; Kakashi could tell that right off the bat as soon as he entered the area. Quickly glancing around the area, he scanned for his recently constant paranoia. Ever since he had gone to that meeting with Tsunade, he never lost that paranoia. Though it had lessened after he left the meeting, it had returned full force once he entered the dojo. The only possible source could be the shinobi he was evaluating.

Tsurugi shifted his feet, opting for a traditional yet average balanced stance.

His first impressions of Tsurugi weren't impressive. To Kakashi, the only thing Tsurugi had going for him was the fact that he looked like a girl. As a naturally stronger male, Tsurugi would able to go on missions that normal kunoichi wouldn't be able to take. Other than that, Tsurugi seemed to be just an average male shinobi.

From her place with the audience, Tsunade called out, "There is to be no scarring, maiming, or anything detrimental to anyone's health. The spar ends when either one of you falls unconscious or when I call the match. Am I clear?"

"Hai!" shouted both shinobi.

"Hajime!"

His attention immediately intensified and focused in on Tsurugi, who calmly remained the same stance. Copying Tsurugi's stance, he patiently waited for Tsurugi to begin his attack.

* * *

"Hm… That's odd of Kakashi."

The three youngest members of the audience turned towards Gai, staring at the competitors. Frowning, Sakura asked, "What's odd, Gai-sensei?"

Gai looked at the medic-nin. She apparently never seen her sensei in a spar before otherwise she wouldn't be asking the question; but still she shouldn't be asking the question. She had seen Kakashi fight before. It was odd of her, not in the same way as Kakashi's oddity, but still, it was odd. Coming out of his thoughts, Gai answered, "Kakashi usually takes the initiative to take the offensive, but now he's waiting for Tsurugi to attack first."

The medic-nin looked back at the still figures. "You're right, Gai-sensei. It's unusual of Kakashi-sensei not to attack."

"This is too troublesome."

_POW!_

With a fist clenched in midair, Sakura growled out, "Don't be a baka. Pay attention."

Returning his gaze to the field, Gai wondered exactly what was Kakashi waiting for.

* * *

"Ne, Hatake-san?"

"Hm?"

Tsurugi tilted his head to the side and gave the other man a bright smile. "Do you mind if I suddenly change my stance?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes on the shinobi. What exactly was this boy thinking? Telling his opponent his next move? Was the whole thing a part of his strategy, to throw him off the boy's trail long enough to do something?

"Iie. Dozo."

The boy smiled, and sans a word and without actually seeming to move, his stance shifted. With feet firmly planted on the ground, he swept his right foot to the one o'clock position and pushed his left foot all the way back until it seemed as if he were to go down into the splits but not. His hands were not clenched in fists but spread flat. He held his left hand back past his face and above shoulder level, and he had his right spread hand parallel to his right leg to point down at the ground.

As soon as he settled into his stance, Naruto cocked his head to the side cutely, making his long black hair sway with the wind. The long hair swayed out and was going to get in the way, but he didn't move to push his hair back. His posture was confident, and from what Kakashi could see, there were no openings in his carriage.

Kakashi twitched; the boy's new stance wouldn't make the match any better, only worse.

* * *

Unintentionally, Gai gave a quiet hiss.

"What is it this time, Gai-sensei?"

It wasn't Gai that answered though. It was Hiashi. He breathed out, "Buddha no Zen'in"

"All hands of Buddha?"

Gai narrowed his eyes and explained for all the members of the audience that had no idea what either Gai or Hiashi were talking about. "Buddha no Zen'in. All hands of Buddha. A taijutsu style created by the monks of the Fire Temple. It's based on open-handed attacks on eight parts of the body: forehead, collarbone, left shoulder, right shoulder, solar plexus, abdomen, kidneys, and the back opposite of the heart. It's like Jyuuken as it doesn't inflict external damage but internal damage, but the damage that the Buddha no Zen'in causes is much more than Jyuuken."

Feeling slightly left out, Tsume continued, "I've heard that the Buddha no Zen'in could push organs out of the victim's body."

Everyone shuddered. The thought of organs flying out of a body just by an open-hand hit was not a thought that any of them wanted to have in their minds, or imagine.

"Anyway," added the dog jounin, "Kakashi knows about the Buddha no Zen'in and what it can do."

* * *

Damn right, he knew about the damage of the Buddha no Zen'in. The only problem was that this was the first time he would ever face it in a real spar; thankfully, the ground rules stated there was to be nothing detrimental to his health, otherwise… he dared not think about it.

Instantly, his eyes shifted to Tsurugi's slight movement, then rose to meet the blue eyes of his opponent. The agreement was made.

_CRASH!_

In an instant, both Kakashi and Tsurugi had clashed, hand for hand, kick for kick. Tsurugi kept his hands open as he caught Kakashi's punch and swung his right leg to sweep his feet. Quickly, he jumped aside, but he never expected for the kick to be swept into full circle, aiming for his ribcage.

Catching the leg was a feat in itself. The strength from the kick caught him off guard, and it took most of his strength to hold onto the leg.

Holding firmly onto Tsurugi's leg, he mirrored the other's sweep, but Tsurugi jumped in time and kicked Kakashi's chest, throwing him back a few feet and distancing them before landing back on his feet.

Once sure that Tsurugi wouldn't come crashing in on him in the next second, Kakashi rubbed his chest absentmindedly. That last kick hurt, and even though it hurt like hell, in the back of his mind, he was a bit glad that Tsurugi hadn't begun to use his hands.

He looked at his opponent once again in the stance of the Buddha no Zen'in. After this spar, it would be probable that any time he looked at this boy, he would see the boy in this stance, threatening to push his organs out of his body.

"Ikkimase, Hatake-san."

Kakashi had only enough time to blink before he was face to face with an eerily smiling Tsurugi. Acting on his instincts, he immediately tried to punch the boy in the stomach only to be caught by an open hand. The boy twisted his open hand and casually pushed Kakashi's punch back before using the other open hand to give an open strike to Kakashi's left shoulder.

Noticing the hand, he leaned back to avoid the hit only to get hit on the right shoulder. Stumbling back, he grabbed his right shoulder and hissed in pain.

* * *

Sakura straightened and leaned forward worriedly. Looking at the various people around her, she asked with a voice on the verge of panic, "Is Kakashi-sensei going to be alright? What happened?"

Gai placed a firm hand on her shoulder, her head snapping to look up at him, and reassured her. "Kakashi will be alright. He's a jounin. He knows how to handle these things. If there was anything too damaging, Hokage-sama would call the match and ask for your assistance in healing either of the two."

The girl could only nod in understanding. Gai quietly let out his breath. Briefly, he wondered how this girl got to be a medic-nin with all her worries and her insecurities, but Tsunade knew what she was doing and that was all that mattered.

From the corner of his eyes, he saw Shikamaru lean towards Neji slightly and ask, "Is he making one-handed seals before he strikes Kakashi-sensei?"

Looking back to the spar, Gai focuses his attention on Tsurugi's hands just before he struck Kakashi. His hands were fast, but the speed and the strain of the muscles beneath the kimono seemed to be very controlled. The willpower to control the mere contraction of muscles had to be legendary, and Gai could only conclude that Tsurugi was going easy on Kakashi, despite this being an honest evaluation of the boy's skills.

He pushed the thought aside though; watching carefully, he did notice that after each strike, the boy would make a one-hand seal before striking again. Although it was easy for the audience to see the seals, it wasn't easy to decipher each seal or what jutsu the seals would perform. It would be ever harder for Kakashi, unless he used his Sharingan.

All he could for now was hope that Kakashi had enough sense in this situation to use his Sharingan.

* * *

Kakashi only had a second before he was again assaulted by a barrage of open hand strikes aimed for the front of his body. The movement of each hand blurred and it was hard to distinguish which way to turn. Trying to dodge them, he got struck only on either shoulder several times, blocking the strikes to more grievous areas before he was forcefully pushed back by a leg of iron into the chest.

That kick knocked the breath out of him, and he dropped onto a knee heaving and trying to catch his breath. Shuddering as he took in deep breaths, he thanked the gods that none of his ribs or any bones at all were broken.

Quickly he raised the hitai-ate revealing the Sharingan. His mind skimmed through dozens of strategies only to throw each one of the out since he didn't know enough about his opponent's fighting style to develop a solid plan. Returning his full attention to reality, he realized that the boy had changed his stance again, and kept his face as emotionless as possible as soon as he recognized the stance.

Tsurugi's left hand stretched out behind him above his head, his right downward in front, his right leg stretched to meet the right hand, and his left bent behind him. The traditional beginning stance for the infamous Jyuuken style.

But despite his readiness to counter the Jyuuken, Tsurugi suddenly formed his hands into two different seals and called out, "Ninpou: Jigoku Karyuu no Jutsu."

The earth began to rumble and from behind the boy, a giant dragon made of black fire emerged and roared a deafening howl before heading straight at Kakashi at a fast pace.

Kakashi's only thought was '_Shit.'_

"Doton: Doryuu Heki!" he shouted before his cheeks puffed and he spit mud onto the ground. The mud immediately started forming and growing into a large mud wall, ready to defend him from Tsurugi's fire attack. Quickly, unsure of Tsurugi's fire attack's abilities, he quickly went through another set of seals and muttered lowly, "Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu" before disappearing into the earth.

"You think you can escape my Jigoku Karyuu no Jutsu, Hatake-san?"

He looked up surprised in the direction of his opponent's voice. Tsurugi shouldn't have known that he used Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu; maybe he was bluffing and was referring to the Doryuu Heki no Jutsu, but rumbling vibrated through the earth that surrounded. He turned around and saw the fiery black form of a dragon heading towards him.

"_HOLY SHIT!"_

* * *

"Ne, Gai-sensei, is that possible?"

Gai looked at the very anxious medic-nin. Inwardly, he sighed exasperatedly. This girl had no faith, and neither could recognize Kakashi's abilities as an experience jounin. What caused this girl to lose faith? Just yesterday, she was full of confidence and determination; he knew from his pupil's overdone explanations of his peers' conditions. Something happened yesterday that caused her to lose something or at least have it locked away.

His eyes boring into hers, he straightforwardly asked, "What's wrong, Sakura?"

Sakura looked at him surprised but then looked away uncertainly. Her eyes kept on shifting left to right and she started fidgeting. Not at all looking at him in the eyes, she also avoided the looks that the Hokage, Neji, and Shikamaru gave her. She murmured under her breath, "I don't know. It's just that… I've been a bit paranoid of everything today, like there's something I should be remembering but I can't, and it's really frustrating."

A slight twitch shifted his attention to the Hokage. One of her neck muscles had twitched inconspicuously, but Gai had been looked in her direction somewhat for answers and had caught the twitch. Shifting his eyes between a seemingly passive Hokage and an anxious Sakura, he concluded that whatever happened to Sakura the Hokage knew.

Putting on a reassuring smile, he soothed the distraught girl. "It's Kakashi. He'll get through this spar, just like how anyone of us would. Besides, one of the stipulations of the spar was nothing detrimental to the other's health. Tsurugi would do nothing to incur the wrath of Tsunade-sama."

The girl nodded, and it seemed that talking about her problem and his reassurance was enough for her to regain her calm.

Shikamaru leaned forward to look at Gai, and complained, "You still haven't answered the question, Gai-sensei."

"It is possible to control the movement and direction of the jutsu through chakra control alone, but the sheer precision is phenomenal. The chakra control is comparable to the chakra control of a medic-nin."

The three lower ranked shinobi (Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura) nodded in comprehension.

* * *

He moved through the earth hurriedly, desperately trying to avoid the incoming Jigoku Karyuu no Jutsu chasing him. Reaching the spot underground where he was directly under Tsurugi, he quickly reached up to grasp his opponents ankles.

Only to grasp nothing but air.

Quickly, he sprang out of the earth to avoid the approaching fire jutsu and sprang away from the hole he made to see the black fire dragon shoot towards the sky roaring raucously before fizzling out into nothing.

Scanning his surroundings, he spread his senses to cover the entire sparring area to pinpoint Tsurugi's location. Apparently, while he was underground, the boy took the liberty to leave a chakra marker before concealing his own chakra signature and disappearing from sight. He glanced quickly towards the audience, who gave nothing away from the looks on their faces.

Kakashi slowly forced his muscles to relax after being so tense since the spar began. His muscles were starting to ache from the earlier brief taijutsu spar.

"Hatake-san."

Spinning around, he attacked on instincts alone and quicker than he or anyone could see kicking whatever he could hit first. Tsurugi blocked the kick in time to block another kick. The boy could only block the barrage of new kicks and punches that the desperate jounin sent his way, but soon slid his foot against Kakashi's foothold then pushed out, knocking Kakashi off-balance.

Kakashi anticipating the footsweep allowed the boy complete the maneuver before twisting as he fell back to counter Tsurugi with a drop sweep. The boy had enough sense to permit the execution of the move before he flipped away as he fell, the distance between the two enough to give them time to recuperate from the stress of the high-pace sparring.

Tsurugi once again settled into the beginning stance of the Buddha no Zen'in while Kakashi fell into a complementary stance to fend off the Buddha no Zen'in.

He analyzed what he learned of the style from what the boy had chosen to show. The style required exposure to eight regions of the body, and only permitted exposure to those eight regions else anything else would be hit, so that meant that he had only to maneuver himself around the strikes to avoid anything too damaging or anything too painful. For the best result, any hits from the palms had to returned directly with an open hand and with the same amount of force, to neutralize the attack completely. The style also involved a great deal of legwork and footwork that allowed the user to close in on one of the eight regions of the target's body. So whenever the boy stepped towards him in a long stride with the right leg, he had to take a longer stride back to avoid the kick from the left leg, and vice versa; whenever the boy took a short stride back to prepare for the longer stride, it would be the opportune moment to strike back.

The motions for the counter would be difficult to perform, but with enough focus and a little bit of luck, he could pull it off and force a surrender out of Tsurugi.

* * *

Neji commented, "It seems Kakashi-sensei has figured the mechanics of the Buddha no Zen'in."

Gai gave his student a quick glance, and noted that Neji still hadn't caught onto the full ramifications of Tsurugi's style. But then he couldn't really blame the boy. One had to actually see the Buddha no Zen'in in actual combat, not in an evaluation spar, to know the true danger and the true might of the superficially simple taijutsu style.

Finally, he decided to tell the younger members of the audience what the others didn't want to say. "Tsurugi is holding back."

The two chuunin and one rookie jounin looked at him before Sakura asked, "What do you mean?"

"It's not perceptible for those that don't have much experience on the field," Gai said before explaining some more. "You three may think that you have enough experience on the field, but in actuality you don't otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."

The three at last noticed that they and Gai were the only ones talking throughout the spar, save for Hyuuga Hiashi's identification of the taijutsu style. The others of the audience gave the three younger shinobi a quick glance before dedicating their attention to Kakashi's renewed fervor.

Not meaning to upset the three, Gai didn't say any more but still kept a concerned eye watching over them.

* * *

Kakashi knew from the very beginning that the boy was holding back; that was the reason why he hadn't revealed his Sharingan. He would have insulted himself if he did so and not recognized that the boy wasn't giving his all into this spar. Despite the spar being an evaluation of Tsurugi's abilities, he couldn't fault Tsurugi for not wanting to reveal all his secrets in front of a group that he might not trust with his full being.

The boy was also limiting himself to using one kata of the full Buddha no Zen'in style, and that should have insulted him. But honestly, he couldn't really bring himself to care.

"Are you ready, Hatake-san, or do you need more time to prepare?"

Passively, he looked at Tsurugi's smiling visage and was suddenly overcome with a nostalgic feeling. Shaking off the feeling, he narrowed his eyes on Tsurugi's hands as each performed one-handed seals. Still smiling, Tsurugi uttered for everyone to hear, "Kanashibari no Jutsu."

Mentally, Kakashi prepared himself for the onslaught of body paralysis and tensed his muscles for it as well, but nothing came. His eyes were on the boy the entire time, and Tsurugi hadn't moved a single muscle but then why… why was Tsurugi getting closer and closer to him?

Spreading out his senses, he hurriedly noted that the shinobi hadn't used any chakra on him, but used the jutsu as a ruse to throw him off track. The boy was currently channeling chakra to his feet and manipulated his chakra to slowly yet quickly slide towards him, to take advantage of whatever surprise that the ruse had caused.

He allowed Tsurugi to close in and avoided all the open-hand strikes to the body; fully aware of the level of power the boy was holding back for some unknown reason. He made no move to attack or to do anything else other than dodge the blurs that were supposed to be arms and hands.

* * *

'_It's about time that the spar draw to a close. Kakashi knows it, so does Tsurugi, but why won't Tsunade-sama call the match?'_

Inuzuka Tsume leaned over to Gai slightly and whispered, "There's something with the boy's smell."

Discreetly, he quickly looked at Tsume, indicating that he had heard, and quietly said in return. "Do you now know why Kuromaru wanted to stay away?"

The dog jounin only replied with the smallest shake of her head.

* * *

'_From the look in his eyes, he is going to force Tsunade-sama's hand and end the spar. Ma, it was fun while it lasted._'

So as Kakashi kept dodging every one of Tsurugi's quick spear strikes, shuffling backwards as he only moved only his head and shoulders to avoid the attacks. Both of them knew that the match was drawing to a close, and there was something that Tsunade wanted Tsurugi to do before the end of match. Apparently, Tsurugi was doing just that.

Maneuvered into the center of the sparring area, he stood there with his hands in his pockets and waited for Tsurugi's next move.

Using both hands this time, the dark-haired bishounen went through the motions of the jutsu for all to see, regardless that shinobi usually wouldn't want anyone not from their village knowing the seals to a jutsu. "Juuni Chuushin Kekai no Jutsu."

Surrounding Kakashi were twelve glowing kanji characters, and to his perception, he read 'horse' and 'serpent'. Mentally, he sighed and relented to his fate. If two of the twelve characters were horse and serpent, then the others would have to be the other members of the zodiac. Even though he had never heard of the jutsu, he could only conclude that it was a barrier of some kind using twelve markers as anchors.

Lines of blue glowing chakra shot up from each of the twelve points, and sheers of blue chakra connected each point, creating a barrier around him. As suddenly as it began, the endpoints started to bend towards a point above Kakashi's head and the thicker lines of chakra bent towards that point, forming a hemisphere around Kakashi.

Nodding mentally at the impressive display of a seemingly effective chakra barrier, Kakashi lifted a foot to move away from the center of the barrier but found that he couldn't move a single part of his body.

In his line of sight, he saw Tsurugi approaching him and reach the barrier before stepping through the barrier. As he stepped through the barrier, he was wrapped with the same blue sheer that made the barrier, and the sheer merely reformed despite the decrease in its material. He walked up to Kakashi and raised a hand.

Resigned to his fate, the last thing that Kakashi felt was the sharp sting of a knife hand strike to his neck before his whole world fell into darkness.

* * *

Tsunade wasn't at all surprised when Naruto caught Kakashi after the boy use a hand strike to the jounin's neck to force unconsciousness. No, she wasn't surprised by his behavior at all. She saw the handseals that the boy made as Kakashi was making his way to a chakra marker that he had made before walking away; the boy had stopped twelve times before disappearing from everyone's sight.

Everyone was confused when they saw Naruto do this, and none of them could figure an answer to this, but once the final act of the spar was made, they finally understood.

Naruto did a good job for the most part. He did make the mistake of not expecting a barrage of strikes and kicks from Kakashi after almost thoroughly surprising the jounin; the boy should have taken advantage of his invisibility to perform maybe a genjutsu… wait, cross that out, Naruto was horrible and absolutely dismal at genjutsu.

Even after Jiraiya had explained the mechanics of the Henge that Naruto imposed on himself, she still would not admit that the jutus he was currently using was a genjutsu.

When Naruto caught Kakashi, he looked expectantly towards her and she complied with his unspoken request. "Winner: Tsurugi Tenkou." For a moment, she was about to say 'Uzumaki Naruto', but immediately changed her words to fit the situation.

Throwing Kakashi's arm over his shoulder and shifting the jounin's weight, Naruto used the other hand to form a one-hand seal before the barrier shattered and the chakra shards dissipated into thin air. He then dragged Kakashi away from the area and moved towards the audience.

She gave her apprentice the go ahead, and Sakura jumped up and scurried over to Kakashi and Naruto, who laid his sensei straight on the hard wood floor. Sakura's hands glowed the usual green chakra before scanning Kakashi's body for any serious damage. She looked up at the rest of them and reported, "Nothing major, and no open wounds. There's going to be a lot of bruising, but nothing that is detrimental to Kakashi-sensei's health."

Eyeing Naruto, who smiled and shrugged, Tsunade ordered, "Heal what you can, then we'll wait for Kakashi to wake up."

"Hai."

* * *

Neji avidly watched the newcomer, and continually racked his brain for the person this newcomer reminded of. It was odd; ever since the boy had walked out of the waiting room, he was overcome with a sense of déjà vu and felt that he should know this boy. There was nothing recognizable about Tsurugi, but couldn't help but think that this wasn't his real appearance. But when he used the Byakugan, his eyes were blocked and he could see nothing but just the person. There was a block to the Byakugan's abilities, showing nothing but the features that everyone could see, and instantly he knew that this shinobi wasn't who he said he was.

From beside him, Shikamaru got up and headed over to Tsurugi. Neji briefly wondered what the genius had in mind before standing up and following.

The genius announced, "You're troublesome, you know that?"

Tsurugi turned to them and smiled brilliantly. "Domo arigatou."

"Tsurugi-kun, you have shown an impressive array of abilities."

Both Neji and Shikamaru spun around to face Hyuuga Hiashi approaching them. Hiashi had a passive expression on his face, not revealing any of his inner emotions; his hands clasped inside the sleeves of his traditional Hyuuga kimono, he gave the most imperceptible nod to Tsurugi.

The black-haired bishounen, in turn, return the same nod to Hiashi and following Hiashi's example, clasped his hands inside his sleeves of his kimono. With the same smile on his face, he replied, "Domo arigatou, Hyuuga-san."

Neji cocked an eyebrow as Shikamaru did, and they looked at each other in question. It wasn't usual for Hiashi to be referred with just the –san suffix; Hiashi was on the Council and all shinobi usually used the suffix –sama. There was only one exception to that rule, but it couldn't possibly apply to Tsurugi Tenkou… could it?

"I hope that you will think well of me in your evaluation, Hyuuga-san."

"Ne, Tsurugi-kun," Sakura apparently finished healing Kakashi and stood up, listening in on their conversation. "I was wondering why you were named Tenkou."

The two younger males blinked in surprise. They hadn't even thought of asking about the other male's name; why would it hold any significance? Sakura probably still hadn't figured out that Tsurugi Tenkou was a fake name for this shinobi, and they for a moment questioned whether she would. Besides the obvious block of the Byakugan's abilities, no one would have been able to figure out that the entire thing was just a façade.

"It's a fake name, Haruno-san."

That was unexpected. They had expected Tsurugi to at least make some excuse, but then for whatever reason would parents name their _male _child 'queen of heaven'?

Tsurugi went on and explained, "It's to ensure my safety, and though I'm sorry about the deception, it is necessary for my protection and for the safety of the village. So I kindly ask that you do not ask for my real name; afterall, ask no questions and I will tell no lies."

Hiashi cleared his throat very subtly, drawing their attention to him, and gestured in the direction of the Hokage. "Tsurugi-san, let us see what Tsunade-sama requires of us."

The bishounen nodded and followed Hiashi over to where Tsunade stood with the other evaluators waiting for them.

Moving away from the older members of the evaluating audience, Shikamaru drew the other two away and observed the happenings while asking Neji, "Don't you think it strange?"

He could only nod in agreement.

"What?"

"Tsurugi added the –san suffix to Hiashi-sama's name," answered Neji, who furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and deep thought. "No one does that; only Council members are allowed that privilege."

Sakura immediately connected the dots and gave a small gasp, "Then you're saying, Tsurugi-kun is a Council member?"

Both males nodded.

"It's odd though," added Shikamaru, "there aren't any open seats on the Council. The only open seat is for Uchiha, and we all know that there's no possible way for Tsurugi to be a part of that clan."

Hands clenching at her side, Sakura asked, "Then which clan?"

They shrugged. They had honestly no idea which clan Tsurugi hailed from, and there was only one open seat on the Council; there wasn't any possible way that Tsurugi was a Council member.

Neji explained, "I've studied the Council dealings for years, and I've come across some really official meetings where it seemed that two Council members were missing." He paused, and Sakura and Shikamaru waited for the jounin to continue. "The other seat apparently belongs to a clan that disappeared during the time of the Shodaime's reign."

Shikamaru frowned, "That clan? Not possible, and besides Tsunade-sama would be the last one of that clan."

"Apparently not," refuted Neji before turning his gaze back to Tsurugi Tenkou.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

It has been exactly two weeks since I posted Chapter 2 on my LJ (konohanasakuya . livejournal . com) and I'm sorry that I didn't post on my account, but I needed to finish this interlude before I put it up since it's basically the entire Chapter 2. I'm sort of surprised that I actually finished this interlude in two weeks, when the same length for Chapter 2 took me about three months. Maybe it's because it's summer break for me and I don't have much to do, so I have much more time to dedicate to writing.

I said that this entire interlude would be just the fight, but I had to add other things to the interlude to make the plotline flow. I added a lot more hints to the clan than I did in the previous version of Chapter 2, so maybe now it's more evident. The only think about that clan that hasn't been revealed is the name of the clan, and I have that prepared to reveal in another chapter.

In this interlude, I really toned down Naruto's abilities. There was no use of Tsuchi Bunshin no Jutsu, or any other Doton-based jutsu like I had in the previous version of Chapter 2. There's only the Jigoku Karyuu no Jutsu (Hell Fire Dragon Technique); the reason why it's black is because it's hell fire, which would be different from the normal red orange fire. The Doton: Doryuu Heki no Jutsu was used in canon; so was Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu. Juuni Chuushin Kekai no Jutsu (Twelve Pivotal Point Barrier Technique) was a made-up jutsu for the purpose of this spar. There was no genjutsu, but plenty of taijutsu. I changed the Kaihoute: Buddha no Odori to Buddha no Zen'in, and completely omitted the use of Kage Hoshi no Odori, because I thought there was absolutely no use for it and I really didn't like the name of the style since it seemed too cliché and too common and too ughh…

Tsurugi means 'sword', and Tenkou means 'queen of heaven'. I originally thought I'd have to name Naruto's disguise as Tenkou Tsurugi instead of Tsurugi Tenkou because usually the first name is 'of' the last name, so it'd be "sword of the queen of heaven", but I decided to forgo that and just put it as Tsurugi Tenkou since I wanted to make a sort of pun with the fact that Naruto's disguise looked so much like a girl that he could be considered the most beautiful and like a queen. Anyway, I don't know if anyone got the pun, but it's there.

For many parts of the story, I'm going to put parts of canon and refer to them as I continue on the plotline. It doesn't really change the plotline, but only add to it. I still have 45 chapters planned for this entire thing, and I have Chapter 8 to redo since I had a back-up copy of that chapter from when I uploaded it. Note, Neji and Temari is a jounin like in canon, even though I didn't say so in Chapter 2, and Shikamaru and Sakura are still chuunin, though I may have said so at some point.

Again, I will try to put the next chapter in two weeks time, but I can't promise since now that there will be a lot of Interludes and Intermissions to save on chapter length. I haven't started on Chapter 3, but I've finished the outline for it and will start to write it this evening. The title of this interlude reflects the title of Chapter 3, and it'll be like this for other interludes.

There are lot of POV changes in this chapter, so if anything is too confusing, I'll try to clear it up in any review responses that I'll put with the author's notes.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need some to beta this chapter as well as the rest of the story for me.

Review!


	4. Revelations That Are Doubted

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter 3: Revelations That Are Doubted**

* * *

"What are we doing here?"

"Tsunade-sama asked me to survey the area yesterday," Neji easily responded his Byakugan active and avidly searching the area. Tsunade yesterday asked him to survey the area for any signs of activity or genjutsu. Although it was incredibly odd of her to ask, he still did as she asked but found nothing out of the ordinary. The area was above the rest of Konoha, and behind the Hokage Monument. Rarely anyone visited the region there, and it was a large area for storage and for evacuations.

To many of the civilians, the area was just called the Storage District, but to the shinobi, it was called Evacuation Valley. None of the shinobi actually understood why it was called Evacuation Valley since the name stuck after being called that after so long by each of the Hokage. The area was a green forest region in a valley not so deep into the Hokage Mountain, and it was just a great expanse of green forest with nothing happening in the vicinity.

Everyone—_everyone_ knew that there was nothing in Evacuation Valley; and Tsunade knew that and surely nothing wrong had happened for her to ask a Hyuuga to scout out the area… right?

Sakura knelt down to get a better ground perspective, and looked up at the two. "And did you find anything?"

Neji shook his head before searching the area with his eyes activated again. "No, but I think there may be something here after all."

"What makes you say that?" asked Shikamaru as he walked out from the group and looked up into the trees.

"Tsurugi-san's deception."

Surprised, Sakura spun around to look at the white-eyed brunette. Getting to her feet, she quickly asked, "What do you mean?"

The Nara sighed and rubbed the back of his head with his hand. "Tsurugi was fooling all of us. Everyone in the audience except you knew that he was; his name, his appearance, and his entire personality was all fake. Nothing of it was real, we think."

The medic-nin frowned but didn't say anything. She knew that there were some aspects of individuals that more experienced shinobi could catch that she couldn't. Both Neji and Shikamaru were more perceptive of these things than she was, so she wasn't one to argue with them.

Then she realized, "Then Tsunade-sama has been hiding something really big?"

The two brunettes nodded slowly and carefully; they knew that Sakura was really loyal to the Hokage and trusted the Hokage implicitly. They had to be careful whenever they talked of anything that would draw suspicion to their superior.

Quickly trying to rectify the situation, Neji pointed out, "She was acting strangely yesterday when she called Hiashi-sama and me in to tell us about the evaluation, and I do believe, by Shikamaru's account of your own story, that she shut the door in your face."

Sakura pouted but didn't argue.

"I get it! I get it! I'll go! Don't you dare step out of this place!"

The three turned towards the direction of the voice, starting to walk towards the voice. For a moment, they thought that it sounded like someone they knew and someone that should have returned a long time ago, but they quickly dispelled that idea when they spotted a flash of long black hair.

Looking at each other, they decided not to call out him for a while, just to glean more information from the mysterious character.

"Yes, that's an order!"

Finally, as they hid behind several trees a few meters, they finally caught sight of the same shinobi they evaluated earlier that day. His head was turned back as he walked towards them and appeared to be listening to something that none of them could hear. He was now dressed in a very traditional and formal black kimono with a plain white haori. Adorning his feet were wooden geta, similar to the ones that one of the three legendary Sannin was known to wear.

"You may come out now."

Startled, they slowly and cautiously stepped out from behind their respective trees and saw a gently smiling Tsurugi with his hands clasped under his kimono sleeves. Their postures stiff and prepared for a confrontation, they watched the new shinobi carefully.

Tsurugi just turned slightly and indicated to nowhere in particular. "Would you like to join me for dinner?"

Shikamaru shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back, his shoulders slumping down as he eased into a more comfortable stance. He sighed and said, "I don't see anything but a cluster of trees."

The shinobi looked over to where he was indicating before giving them a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that, but I have to know whether you'd like to join me for dinner or not before I say anything else."

Sakura glanced briefly at the other two males and then stepped forward, smiling benignly. "What are you having for dinner?"

"I'm making miso soup, temaki zushi, and yakisoba," replied Tsurugi.

She nodded and turned her head to look at the other two, indicating that they should trust the relatively unknown shinobi. She knew that the two naturally distrusted others that lied to them outright, and that was what Tsurugi did. But there was something about this newcomer that was familiar, though she couldn't place her finger on it, and it made her relax in his presence.

Not waiting for the other two males to decide, Tsurugi decided to go ahead. He stepped away from them and towards the direction he was pointing, bowing a bit as a gracious host. "Then, please step in."

They frowned. What did he mean 'step in'? There were in the middle of an empty forest, not a house or a semblance of shelter in sight, and he just randomly said to 'step in'. Then it clicked in their heads: a genjutsu covering an entire area, a genjutsu resembling or maybe even the same as the one that Tsurugi was using to hide his true identity.

Walking in the direction indicated, they cast an eye on Tsurugi to gauge his reactions but receive true sincerity.

They blinked.

The moment that they stepped into the area hidden by the genjutsu, they were assaulted by a spectacular sight. Trees and the green earth was replaced by a vast clearing. Looking back at the trees behind them, they realized there were only a few layers of trees separating the clearing from the rest of Konoha and acting as a protective barrier and wall. But looking at the clearing, they could understand why there was a genjutsu.

It was a mini-village in the valley. There was a large manor up front and the most prominent symbol of the owner's prestige and greatness; taking in its entirety, they could probably say that the manor was the largest in all of Konoha, larger than the Hyuuga manor and the Uchiha manor. It was no small wonder why the properties were not directly in Konoha. The architecture was truly Japanese, and in a perspective, it did look like a temple. It was a traditional Japanese manor, complete with a small temple a few hundred meters away from the main house and a dojo a similar distance away.

The many smaller houses in the clearing past the great manor could house the entire population of Konoha albeit a bit tightly, they estimated. The houses were built in a style similar to the main manor, and from the slight unkempt appearance, no one had lived in the area for a long time.

Looking down at their feet, they realized that they were no longer on cold ground, but walking on cold cobblestone. The grass had stopped a few meters behind them. Faintly, they could hear the gentle lapping of water and the occasional tap of bamboo on hard stone.

Glancing back at Tsurugi, Sakura remarked with an awed expression, "It's beautiful."

Tsurugi stepped up beside her and with them gazed at the scene with an appreciative eye. "I know." Shaking his head, he gestured forward and started walking towards the front doors. "Shall we?"

The three nodded lightly and followed.

"Sennin-sama?"

Sakura, Shikamaru, and Neji looked at each other. '_Sennin-sama?_'

A faint and rumbling voice came from deep within the manor and called out, "_Sennin-sama_? What the hell are you trying to pull…"

In the doorway of the manor stood a white-haired man that all of them knew. They stared at him and shouted in disbelief, "Jiraiya-sama?"

"Oh. It's you three," said Jiraiya in a deflated tone. The man glanced with a perturbed expression flashing across his face. Turning a bit, he gestured to all of them. "I guess you better come in then. I wouldn't want Tenkou thinking I'm preventing him from being a gracious host."

Turning to look at Tsurugi who merely nodded in acquiescence, they walked up the stairs and changed their shoes in the genkan. They waited until their host closed the door behind him and let him pass by.

He looked at them and asked politely, "Would you like a tour of the house?"

* * *

Tsurugi took them through the manor and gave them a brief spiel about the history of the manor and why the valley was called Evacuation Valley. Tsurugi's clan was among the first to settle the region and had already starting building its manor in the valley of the Hokage Monument before the building of the rest of Konoha. Because his clan had taken up the entire valley, Konoha could only be built on the land below the mountain, and the clan had guaranteed usage of the valley and the clan properties in case of emergencies. So whenever there was an evacuation in Konoha, the civilians were supposed to reside in the living quarters that belonged to the clan.

There wasn't much about the clan history, because the clan tended to lead a very normal and secluded life that very incidents happened regarding the clan. But, apparently despite the quiet and normalcy of Tsurugi's clan, there were troubled times in the past including the near extinction of the entire clan during the Third Great Shinobi War.

He said that because there were so few members of his clan and those members were out of Konoha, in the last evacuation during the Sand-Sound invasion, the civilians could not be evacuated to the valley and into the living quarters. The entire estate was covered in a genjutsu linked to the Clan Head and invisible to everything, including the Byakugan. The only way to enter the estate was to either be a part of the clan or be invited by a member of the clan that had been given permission to give invitations. So since there were no members available during the Sand-Sound invasion, the civilians had to relocated to evacuation routes in the Hokage Mountain itself.

It really didn't matter though, Tsurugi went on to say. No one had used the valley since the Third Great Shinobi before the clan's near extinction. Nearly the entire clan was killed so that none of them could give permission to anyone to use the valley, preventing anyone from seeing the valley and using it as a safe haven; because of this massacre, the clan had fell out of knowledge and so the valley hadn't been used since then. He waved aside the worries though; he told them that once he conformed to his environment and once he settled all his affairs, he would bring his clan back from the mists of time.

Finally, Tsurugi directed them to the kitchen where they sat down at the low table on zabutons. Jiraiya, who had left them when the four had entered the manor, was sitting there as well, quietly staring at the sake that he was drinking. The Sannin had already gone through one bottle and onto his second as he looked at the sake saucer with a black expression.

He looked up at them after a while of waiting and stated, "You want to know about Naruto."

They nodded only for Jiraiya to sigh wearily.

"Naruto's still on a training mission I sent him on. It's going to take a few weeks to complete, maybe a few months depending on how well prepared he is."

Sakura protested, "You sent him out _alone_?"

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow curiously and leered at her suspiciously, "And? He's a shinobi."

She opened her mouth to give a retort but as the Sannin's words rolled through her mind, she closed her mouth and didn't say anything in return.

"Would you like anything to drink?"

The group turned their heads to watch Tsurugi kneel down, placing the tray of amenities down on the table and clearly waiting for a response.

Tea was the first thing on their lips, and after the extremely long-haired shinobi placed out tea cups and poured out the tea from an ornate china kettle, he sat down and took out a sake saucer, similar to Jiraiya's, and poured himself some sake from the sake bottle.

As soon as he took his initial sip of tea, Shikamaru remarked bluntly, "You're drinking sake."

Tsurugi only nodded before taking another sip.

Sake wasn't exactly illegal for shinobi of any age to drink. Hell, they could have started drinking alcohol when they were twelve, but it wasn't well looked upon for any shinobi under the age of twenty-one to be drinking simply because alcohol damages the human body as it's completing maturation. If anyone didn't really care about their bodies as shinobi, then they would have started much earlier on. There went a saying amongst shinobi that if you're old enough to kill, then you're old enough to drink. Most shinobi didn't hold it to heart, but clearly, Tsurugi used the proverb in its full context.

"It's not good for your body," Sakura admonished lightly, her medic-nin side coming out.

Again, Tsurugi nodded before taking another sip.

Jiraiya explained, "He's been drinking since he was thirteen."

They stared at the underage drinker.

"He apparently has a high tolerance for alcohol; he can hold more than three times his weight in sake," Jiraiya said with a maniacal glint in his eyes. Lowly, he mumbled conspiratorially, "Can't wait to get both him and Tsunade into a drinking contest."

Two chuunin and one jounin looked at the newcomer in disbelief. With their maturing bodies (and they of course were assuming that Tsurugi was about their age simply on his appearance), pronounced amount of alcohol would undoubtedly stifle their growth and their shinobi abilities, but before their eyes was living proof of a shinobi drinking from the age of thirteen and skilled enough to remain neck to neck with the legendary Copy Ninja Kakashi.

Silence fell as they continued to enjoy their respective drinks, and it was nearing seven o'clock.

"Jiraiya-sama."

Everyone looked at Tsurugi, who spoke very unexpectedly and very softly. The boy nursed his sake saucer in his hands reverently and didn't dare look at the four people staring at him and waiting for him to speak.

"He wants me to go back."

Only Jiraiya got the hidden meaning in those words while the other three were left in confusion.

To them, it seemed unfair that they were left out of the scope of things. Neji, as a Jounin, would have privilege to get information, but since he was only a rookie Jounin, his rank wasn't enough to pry information out of these two. Even though they didn't know exactly why the Hokage had asked them to evaluate Tsurugi, they understood that he had been out of Konoha for a very long time and had to be evaluated in order for his rank to properly reflect his skill. They also understood that for whatever reason Tsurugi was out of Konoha for such a long time had something to do with his previous statement.

Leaving them to their thoughts, Tsurugi got to his feet and smiled. "Dinner will be ready in not too long. I hope you are still hungry."

No one said anything as he left to prepare dinner.

* * *

Jiraiya waited with Naruto as the boy waved his friends off. The blonde was still under the disguise and had acted the perfectly annoying person that was his disguise. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that the blonde was replaced by a complete stranger.

Dinner had been uneventful. The three guests had been polite and didn't pry too much in their affairs, but their curiosity shone clearly in their eyes. Both he and Naruto had not given away too much information, and he himself wasn't sure exactly what Naruto wanted his friends to know, so he kept to the basics and chose not to reveal anything more than what Naruto had already told them about himself.

The dinner itself was resplendent. It only helped draw away suspicion from Naruto's disguise compared to Naruto's real character. The boy had been polite, annoying but polite, and constantly diverted the three's attention away from questions the boy knew were coming. What Naruto had learned over the past three years truly helped in the dinner conversation. He personally thought that the boy wouldn't have it in him to blatantly lie to his friends about who he was, but he thought wrong.

Once the guests were firmly out of sight and the genjutsu over the Estates once more hid them from the world's prying eyes and eavesdropping ears, Naruto sat down on the stone steps leading up to the front doors of the manor. The boy didn't even have enough propriety to dust off his seat before he sat down, but then after dinner's performance, he allowed his student some leniency.

Staring off in the direction that the boy's friends had left, Jiraiya had to ask. "You want to protect them."

Also looking the same way, Naruto nodded solemnly. He still wore the ridiculous disguise in case something happened to the genjutsu barrier that kept away wandering eyes, just like how those three had seen him out of the Estates and in the middle of seemingly nowhere.

"I want to tell them, Ero-Sennin," he replied.

Inwardly, he twitched at the brat's nickname. He had been trying for the past three years to get the brat to call me by some other name that wasn't so disparaging to his reputation.

"I really want to tell them," he repeated.

"But?" Jiraiya slowly urged.

He knew what Naruto had to say. He knew that Naruto knew that he knew, but he still wanted the boy to say it outloud. The boy had kept it bottled up for a long time, and he had no one his age with whom he could share his burden. And even now, when he had finally returned to the village, he still couldn't get the words off his chest.

Deep down, he pitied the brat. He didn't want to pity the boy at all; after all, Naruto wouldn't want his pity or his sympathy. That would only degrade the boy's pride, but still… he couldn't help it. With all the bad experiences in the past, Naruto needed all the help and support that he could get from his friends, but he still couldn't get it because of the things happening now around the world.

Naruto pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. "I don't want them to get hurt."

He sighed. Still standing behind the boy, he looked down at his charge and lightly admonished, "They're shinobi, Naruto. They're going to get hurt whether you want them to or not."

"I know," said Naruto, not looking back at his sensei. "I just… I just want to spare them a little bit of pain though."

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

"Your condition," started Jiraiya.

Naruto quickly interrupted, "I won't tell them." He paused before continuing, "Not unless it's necessary."

Jiraiya frowned. The boy should know better than to withhold information from his peers. If he guessed Tsunade's reaction to Naruto's jounin application correctly, then Naruto would be going on missions with his peers despite the difference in rank. That lone secret could mean the success or failure of the mission, and Naruto didn't seem– or rather didn't want to grasp that concept.

"You have to trust them."

The boy hung his head in defeat and nodded weakly. "I just don't know if I can trust myself."

He suppressed the urge to sigh. After the incident a week into their training expedition, the boy's self-confidence had dwindled, not so much that it was a total change of character, but enough where he wasn't as upbeat and bouncy anymore. If the change had happened under more fortunate circumstances, he would have welcomed the change with open arms, but with the reason why it did happen as it was, he couldn't help but blame himself.

"You're stronger than you think."

Again, Naruto said, "I know. It's just that constant feeling of doubt." Tilting his head back, he looked up at the sky. "I remember being hyper, hot-tempered, gullible… so free, but now…" He looked down at his open hands. "Look at me."

Sensing that the boy's thoughts were drifting in a bad direction, he quickly let a moment of silence hang between the two before changing the subject. He carefully repeated what Naruto had said earlier. "He wants you to go back."

Instantly, the aura around Naruto changed from a deep melancholy to a smooth detachment.

He knew that the brat would not immediately respond to a statement like that, so he calmly asked, "When does he expect you back?"

"Two weeks."

Eyes widening, he couldn't help but stare at his charge. "Two weeks? Why are you telling me now?" He stopped ranting. He then asked, "For how long are you staying?"

"Three months."

"Three months?" he exclaimed, shocked. In two weeks, the boy would be gone for the next three months in a place that he hadn't even wanted the boy to go to in the first place. Originally, he had only been at that place for two weeks at the most before leaving for a month and then going back; this time, he would be gone for a much longer period, a period of time that would make him literally bite his nails off in fear of the boy getting into trouble. He would have been fine if Naruto was just going back in two weeks, but it was the three month period that made him anxious. "Why?"

Naruto shrugged. Pushing himself onto his feet, he brushed the dirt and dust off his clothes and turned to look at his sensei. With a hard expression on his face, he explained, "He said that something big was going to happen soon, and he wanted me back to do something."

Jiraiya only nodded and mused aloud, "Akatsuki is on the move again, so his plans must move up as well." His eyes narrowing, he pointed out, "The contract—"

"Comes into effect during the three months," Naruto interrupted with unconscious rudeness. "I know; there's nothing I can do about that. I can try to get out a bit early, but—"

"If the contract comes into effect, you _will_ get out," ordered Jiraiya sternly, leaving no room for disobedience.

The brat glared at him but without malice.

"It will compromise your mission, but your safety is more important than the mission," he explained.

In his mind, he knew that the brat would do everything in his power to use the power of the contract, and he applauded the brat for that. But, there still was the chance that the boy would be outed and harmed because of it. Retreating would be the only viable option if the contract became too much of a strain, but the brat was stubborn as a mule.

Naruto didn't say anything, but he knew that the boy knew that it was his only choice, despite all that he could and wanted to do.

* * *

"Ohayo."

Tsunade turned to greet the group of three, Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura. Shockingly, they held themselves composed and emotionless; something must have happened yesterday after the spar evaluation. She didn't put it past them not to have revisited the Estates after what Naruto revealed during the spar.

Warmly, she said in response, "Ohayo."

All three bowed politely to all the Council members in the room, even though not all were paying attention. Homura and Koharu were already seated and discussing something with each other over Tsunade's seat between them, blatantly ignoring everyone else in the room. Tsume sat to the right of Hiashi with Shikaku, lazily talking. Hiashi, on the other hand, talked to no one but rather was going over papers that he brought as they waited.

Neither Kakashi nor Gai had arrived, and knowing those two, everyone in the room didn't really expect either of them to get on time, Gai only because he would be following Kakashi around wherever the tardy jounin would be in the morning.

The three sat down on the other side of Koharu and continued their discussion.

She let out a breath of exasperation; personally, she didn't even want to have an evaluation like this ever, especially for Naruto. The boy's skill could not be determined in a spar like the one yesterday, but only in actual combat. She would have had him join a jounin on a team, preferably Kakashi's team, and let the team evaluate his performance, but with the jounin status application, everything became much more difficult and consisted of more paperwork. Inwardly, she shuddered.

"I see we are still waiting on Hatake-san and Maito-san."

Having sensed his presence for a while, Tsunade smiled lightly and told him, "I'm glad that you haven't picked up his annoying habit of being late." She turned around and she noticed that he wore the same outfit that he did yesterday. His face was bright and smiling, a difference from the calm that she was used to seeing on his face nowadays.

Naruto put on a mocking hurt look and held a hand to his chest dramatically. "I'm hurt that you would actually think that of me, Tsunade-sama."

She was also glad that in his disguise he didn't have the nerve to actually call her 'ba-chan'.

"I SHALL DEFEAT YOU, MY ETERNAL RIVAL, YOU AND YOUR HIP ATTITUDE!"

Hearing those loud words, Naruto dropped his head into his hands and shook his head in horrified disbelief. Suddenly, he grabbed at Tsunade's clothes and pleaded with watery puppy eyes, "Please, get me out of here. I don't want to be here with—"

"WE HAVE ARRIVED AND I SHALL PROVE MY FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTER!"

"—them!"

Amused with Naruto's predicament, she smirked. "Too late."

Kakashi, ignoring Gai, walked up to Tsunade and gave a light pout. "Didn't you tell me to come here at six in the morning, Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow in growing amusement. "Yes."

"Then why is everyone still here?"

With a full blown smirk, she easily replied with an added careless wave of the hand, "Oh, I told them to be here at nine, so you're on time."

The jounin gave her a horrified look and slowly inched away from the group and towards the door. Instantly, one spandex-wearing jounin and a chuunin with extraordinary strength each held onto his arms, preventing the chronically tardy jounin from running away. ("No!!")

Brushing off the loud screaming of the one-eyed jounin, Tsunade walked away from the group and to her seat between Homura and Koharu, who stopped their conversation as soon as she got within hearing range of what they were saying. She narrowed her eyes, glancing quickly between the two teammates of her late sensei.

These two had never caused much trouble in Konoha matters before, and she doubted that they would now, but she always held the older generation with some sort of suspicion. The older generation would never openly discuss their thoughts unless they were for the good of Konoha, and they at times were harder to read than even the most stoic of shinobi under her command.

Pushing aside her thoughts for later, she sat down and glared at the attention-drawing trio near the door. The three immediately settled down and scattered to their various positions throughout the room. Sakura returned to her seat with Shikamaru and Neji, who only shook their heads; Kakashi and Gai took their seats by Shikaku and Tsume, who casually let the two new jounin join their conversation.

Naruto stood in front of them, casually and smiling gently as befit his character.

Clearing her throat to gather the room's attention, Tsunade in a formal tone started the meeting. "Two days ago, I sent a missive out concerning a shinobi evaluation I wished each of you to attend, and yesterday, we gathered and witnessed that evaluation. I now ask that each of you present your assessment of yesterday's match."

Almost immediately, Homura raised his hand and began to speak. "Tsurugi-san did not give us a performance lacking skill and ability, but I must point out that he did not show his abilities to the fullest."

Without delay, Koharu added in, "Despite that, merely having his level of skill does not by definition make him a jounin, as per his skill level. He must demonstrate skills in leadership and strategy."

"And you did not think that yesterday's match was enough evidence of strategy?"

Everyone's head turned towards Shikaku. He casually waved his hand at the two aging advisors and explained, "The boy plainly predicted every single move of the match just by identifying Kakashi's first stance; he hadn't broken a sweat, and he kept his pace equal to Kakashi's. I'd say that his strategic skills are not lacking."

Tsunade privately smirked. Shikaku wasn't only pointing out points of Naruto's performance yesterday, but he was also putting down the advisors on either side of her. She didn't doubt for the slightest moment that Tsume wouldn't do the same thing.

And just as she predicted, the dog jounin did. "The boy has been on a long-term mission; he hasn't had any contact with Konoha at all during his mission. How on earth do you expect him to gain leadership abilities without a team to lead?"

"Although I do not entirely agree with Homura-san and Koharu-san," interjected a calm collected voice, "I believe Tsurugi-san displays jounin-level skill, including jounin-level strategic skills, but as a chuunin, Tsurugi-san will learn how to harness his abilities to the fullest and gain enough experience to be granted jounin rank without taking the jounin exams."

Homura nodded slowly, seeming not to disagree but not wanting to give up his position. "Your idea, Hyuuga-san, has merit, but I must point out that the only display of genjutsu ability was his appearance, and that is not enough to warrant jounin rank."

Hearing all the Council members around her argue about the boy's skill was causing her a migraine. Rubbing her temples soothingly, she didn't intend to grumble her thoughts loudly. "If you had not interrupted me, you would have known that the boy doesn't want the jounin rank."

That certainly caused everyone's head to turn again.

Koharu at her side then requested, "Please do explain, Hokage-sama."

Heaving a mental sigh, she clasped her hands and explained, "The day that Tsurugi returned, he immediately handed to me a jounin-status application."

From the quiet group of three, Neji finally voiced his confusion, "Jounin-status application? Doesn't only apply when someone applies for a mastery of a certain area?"

She nodded, "Tsurugi gave me a jounin-status application for seal mastery."

This brought wide eyes from everyone. All of them knew that there hasn't been a single seal master since the Yondaime, and for there to be one now was extraordinary. Not that the younger generation knew but all the adults knew; in order for a shinobi to try out for jounin-status in seal mastery, he or she had to create a seal that displayed a different level of complex sealing because ever since the Yondaime sealed the Kyuubi, no one has been able to display that kind of prowress. Now out of the (seeming) blue comes a unknown shinobi claiming to have done just the thing.

Koharu looked at Naruto pointedly, "You do know, boy, that there hasn't been a seal master since the Yondaime?"

Naruto merely nodded and smiled and acted his part. "I'm sure that my application will pass with my entry for seal mastery."

Silently, Tsunade handed the old female advisor the scroll that Naruto had given her the first day. She didn't spare a glance to the disguised blonde, in case someone in the room thought that some conspiracy was happening in front of his or her eyes.

The advisor took the scroll, unfurled it, and skimmed over the contents before rolling it back up and giving it back to Tsunade to hand it over to Homura, who repeated Koharu's actions. Homura passed it onto Hiashi, and by the end, everyone in the room had seen the contents of the scroll, though Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura had little idea what the contents meant.

No one said anything until Sakura asked her question. "Exactly what is that seal supposed to do?"

Watching Naruto closely, she saw the boy turn and look at her apprentice. Apparently, the boy kept his cover and hid all his inner emotions, only showing the superficial emotions of his disguise. More calmly and coolly than she expected of him, he answered, "It's a cure for Orochimaru's cursed seal."

Immediately, Sakura stiffened.

Tsunade sighed. She had hoped that her apprentice wouldn't react the way she did to Orochimaru's name; and if things had turned out differently for Naruto, the boy would have done the same thing, not that she could blame him. But with things turning out the way they did, she had a guilty thought about the pity she felt for the boy, yet applauded the boy for his superb acting skills.

For the first time since the beginning of the meeting, Gai spoke up and voiced his opinion. "Even though I see no faults in his seal, I still cannot condone experimentation on our only cursed seal victim."

Slowly, Tsunade dropped her head into her hands. Her apprentice and her friends didn't know about Anko's situation, but it couldn't be helped. She could only hope that they won't spill anything important.

"From the information gathered by my contacts," Naruto started slowly and carefully, seeming not to want to give out the particular information. Everyone listened in. "There is a facility that Orochimaru used in his initial experiments with the cursed seal," Naruto intoned without any sort of hint of implication.

All heads nodded, understanding though Sakura gave a frown in silent protest.

Hiashi then said, "Then we will send shinobi—"

"That won't be necessary," interrupted Naruto.

The Hyuuga Head narrowed his eyes on the boy and carefully asked, "What do you mean, Tsurugi-san?"

"The contract is coming in to effect."

That was all that it took for most of the adults in the room to freeze up and pale. Sakura, Shikamaru, and Neji were left out of the loop, confused and startled by everyone else's reaction.

From the moment that she knew about the contract years ago, Tsunade knew that the clans were glad that she wasn't a part of that branch of the clan. Inwardly, she cackled with glee; this would be the first time in so many years that the clans would have to succumb to another clan, especially the Hyuuga to another. The mayhem would be great!

Naruto then reassured them despite their fears. "The contract still won't come into effect for a few months, so you can rest assured."

Tsume leaned forward and asked earnestly, "You're a part of _that_ clan?"

The boy just smiled and nodded, causing the adults in the room, save Tsunade, to shudder in apprehension.

"Then," started Hiashi, his voice under control but his skin still ashy, "whenever you are ready to begin, please alert us."

Finally, Kakashi chimed in, his composure returned despite the upset, "I suppose that we should allow Tsurugi-kun Special Jounin rank; his seal is complete and he shows enough mastery to have made the seal."

Koharu, her eyebrows furrowed and a frown set upon her face, protested and argued, "There are still other tests that need to be given to show complete mastery."

"Yes, but those can be given after the facility is found."

The advisor didn't retort and settled down in her seat, not finding another argument to give to support her position.

Seeing that it was finally settle, and only giving the smallest mental thanks to the one-eyed jounin, Tsunade asked, "Are there any final objections?" No one raised their hands or spoke, their eyes all on Tsunade. She smiled and spoke to Naruto, "Then, congratulations, Tsurugi Tenkou, you are now a Special Jounin."

Naruto gave a soft smile. "Thank you."

She looked back to everyone else in the room and thanked everyone for their time and efforts, all people in the room understanding the dismissal and getting to their feets. Seeing that the youngest three, Kakashi, and Gai were making their way to Naruto, she also drifted towards them, stopping every now and then to talk to the other people in the room.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Kakashi reaching Naruto first and congratulating him on his achievement, genuine sincerity written all over his face. Naruto immediately cringed when Gai started spouting off words about the 'Flame of Youth'. Sakura, Shikamaru, and Neji each gave their congratulations and talked to their friend for a while, not knowing at any time that he was their friend, before walking away and waving their good-byes. Kakashi and Gai also left the boy, smiling and waving.

Moving away from the people leaving the room leaving the room mainly empty, she walked to the last person in the room. "I suppose that you knew all along that you would get the rank, right brat?"

Naruto spun around and his smile became brilliant, showing his honest happiness. He playfully smirked and mocked, "Oh course I knew, Tsunade-obachan. After all, I'm the great Uzumaki Naruto, the Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha."

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

Yay! Chapter 3 is done! It's been exactly 2 weeks since the Interlude was put up, and I'm glad that I finished writing this on time. Right now, I'm supposed to be helping out my mom, but I needed to finish writing this. You can't believe how much I cut out from this chapter; I cut out THREE scenes! A Shikamaru POV, the sentou scene, and a Sakura POV. I'll probably make an Intermission for Sakura's POV, but I'm not really sure about that because I need to be working on Chapter 4. But if I do it, I need to finish it before the end of this week.

Chapter 3 is just about a full 15 pages long, just like I said that all my chapters would be from now on. So about those 3 cut scenes, I have to leave them cut (except Sakura POV) and you probably won't ever see them. I've started working on Chapter 4 but it'll take some time for me to finish with just the outline, since I've finally decided that I'm going to have the Gaara retrieval arc in there, so that'll take a few chapters or so and it'll give me time to revise and rewrite Chapter 8, which will end up even further into the story than I initially intended, but ah well…

This chapter isn't a really funny or serious chapter; I did try to add humor with Gai and Kakashi's arrival, but I usually don't do a good job of those. This chapter was a more informatative chapter, and it puts more problems and events into play in the plotline. So that means this is a major plot-moving chapter. This chapter had probably the least number of POV changes, since there were only 4 compared to my usual 8 or so. To let you all know, the first part was a general POV from Neji, Shikamaru, and Sakura's viewpoints, the second part same as the first, the third part was Jiraiya's POV, and the last was from Tsunade's POV. I'm trying to avoid using Naruto's POV, and I only noticed after the interlude was up for a few days that I had put Naruto's POV in there without intending, so try and indulge yourselves on the only Naruto POV (I hope) in the entire fanfiction.

At the beginning of the chapter, I was planning on putting the name of Naruto's clan, but I decided not to and to wait a few more chapters, maybe until the part of the story were I'm writing about what happened to Naruto on his 3 year trip. So you'll have to wait for that.

As a note, I'm going to be using a lot of canon points but twisting them and changing them to fit my story and eventually when I get far enough, I will start deviating completely away from canon but with some events still happening.

Zabuton - cushion (see http / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Zabuton )

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of the story.

**_Review!_**


	5. Slavery Unwarranted for the Justice

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

_**Important Note**__: Everyone's been asking how often I will be updating this fanfiction, and to officially let everyone know, I will be updating this fanfiction every other week, so in two weeks if anything doesn't happen, you will have your next chapter. I will be doing this until the end of August maybe._

* * *

**Chapter 4: Slavery Unwarranted By the Justice**

* * *

Tenten casually watched the people around her converse and interact before sighing in boredom. There was no one there that she knew well enough for her to actually go up to talk to; well there were several people that occasionally came to her father for weapons. Even if she were to go to them to talk, what would she talk to them about? What would she say? Oh, you know my father, right? He's the one that supplies your family with weapons? Do you want to talk to me?

She shuddered. That was the worst thought that she had all day, and couldn't help but sigh again. She was absolutely bored! There was nothing to do. Everyone was milling about, gossiping, and for whatever reason in the gods' names, negotiating. But then, she couldn't fault them. This was the largest gathering of clan heirs in recent memory, so all of them took advantage of it to garner new ties.

If Tsunade hadn't called the meeting, she couldn't believe that clan heirs would have gathered willingly. Only some clans interacted; others ignored and kept away from each other. She sighed. Some of the clans were natural enemies or rather rivals with each other, and were bound to avoid contact as much as possible, and she didn't begrudge them.

"Tenten-san."

She looked around, searching for whomever was calling out to her. Spotting her friend, she smiled and waved him over. As soon as he reached her, she greeted him warmly. "Ohayo."

Neji gave a small nod. "Ohayo." He looked around, carefully taking into account everyone and everything. His posture was stiff and his hands were uncharacteristically twitching. Even though his face was blank of emotions, the motions of his eyeballs were erratic, and they darted all over, searching for potential threats.

She frowned, confused why her teammate would act this way, and she wanted to call it nerves, but this was Neji. He would never let nerves get the best of him.

"Ohayo."

Both glanced over to the approaching group. In addition to Lee, the rookies of the Rookie Nine that were still in Konoha approached them and grumbled out morning greetings. Out of the newly arrived group, Sakura and Shikamaru were tense and glanced around more anxiously than Neji but still comparable to the white-eyed jounin, noted Tenten. The others lazed about and started interacting without a care.

Out of the Rookie Nine, two of Team 7 were missing, leaving Sakura the only one in Konoha. All of Team 8's chuunin members were there, meaning all of Team 8, Akimichi Chouji, Yamanaka Ino, and Nara Shikamaru, were there, though she suspected that Shikamaru had already tried to get out of the meeting by sleeping in and had been foiled by Ino's incessant berating. Team 10 was out of Konoha on a mission, so Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata weren't able to make the meeting but would be filled in as soon as they returned.

She slowly came to a realization and looked at Neji. Neji was a member of the Hyuuga Branch Family, so why was he here with the rest of the clan heirs? Hinata was the Hyuuga heir, so it was obvious that the absent girl was a likelier candidate.

As if reading her mind, Neji told her under his breath, "I'm the heir of the Hyuuga Branch Family."

Ah… Now that explained everything, but it also raised questions that she thought she would never ask. Were there clans in Konoha that had branch families like the Hyuuga clan? She thought it inconceivable that others would subject family members or even others to servitude and absolute obedience, but the Hyuuga clan had disproved her notion. And now, she placed some doubt on some of her more unshakeable beliefs about her home village.

"Whatever you're thinking about, don't think about it. You'll only get more stressed," Neji told her, bringing her out of her thought process. Both understood that wherever her train of thought led, she would only get more stressed and depressed.

She nodded in agreement before smiling widely and maniacally, and Neji blatantly turned away, clearly trying to show everyone that he didn't know the crazy person next to him.

Turning her direction away from her teammate, she went back to people-watching.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sakura edge towards Neji and Shikamaru walk up to Neji without a care about who saw him. They neared the jounin and leaned in whispering in low voices, keeping their conversation from being heard by eavesdropping ears and busybodies. Unfortunately for them, she was close enough to overhear part of the exchange.

"…not here."

Shikamaru gave Sakura an annoyed look before giving the usual Shikamaru sigh. "This is too troublesome."

The medic-nin gave her peer an annoyed look in return.

Neji then drove their attention back to the subject, "Of course, he's not going to be here. Who else would get Tsunade-sama to call a meeting for all the available clan heirs?"

Sakura then pointed out, "Lee's not a part of a clan."

"Then he was called here for another reason than the one for which we were called," Neji assumed, basing his assumption on the fact that just about every single person there was a clan heir.

From out of the opposite corner of her eye, she saw Lee bounding over and took it upon herself to warn the conversing trio. Strolling up to them casually, she leaned forward and murmured, "You should take more care to see if there was anyone that can overhear your conversation, and by the way, Lee's coming," while pointing towards Lee's direction.

Snapping out of their surprise, they turned to where she was pointing. Lee had apparently finished talking to Chouji, who lived close to the taijutsu specialist, and headed their way to 'spread the flames of youth' with his teammates.

As soon as the chuunin reached them, Tenten redirected his attention by pointing out in a random direction, "Look, Lee! There's Gai-sensei!"

Immediately, Lee turned and ran the other away, shouting, "Gai-sensei!"

The three that she helped sighed mentally in relief at not being caught up by the over-exuberant shinobi.

She turned back to the three, and they stiffened. She grinned sadistically, "You _will_ tell me what you were talking about after Tsunade-sama dismisses us."

They gave her small nods, but it was enough. The three had been keeping secrets and admitted to it, leaving her able to question any of those secrets. They separated, standing away from each other to avoid any suspicion, and Neji stepped closer to her, giving everyone the impression that he was standing by her just for the mere reason of being teammates.

Her eyes darting between the three, she noted that they still held themselves stiff and ready for an attack, which was weird in their current setting. They were surrounded by various clan heirs, proficient in their family arts, whatever they may be, and all having abilities of seasoned shinobi, though more than half of them were not. With the amount of skill surrounding them, the three should not have any sort of paranoia or anxiety about attacks.

The doors that lead down to the rest of the Hokage Tower creaked, and all conversation stopped. All motions stopped, and everyone's head turned towards the noise.

Two figures stepped out of the doorway, and it wasn't to the slightly taller figure that all looked to (though they were supposed to). Everyone's attention shifted to the figure standing by the Hokage, and apparently from their blank and confused expression, no one knew who she was.

Realizing that though she or anyone else may not know, Tenten spun around to meet Neji's carefully blank eyes, Shikamaru's mildly blank and slightly annoyed eyes, and Sakura's guarded eyes. Out of the three, Sakura's eyes were more open, and staring into those green orbs, Tenten could readily read more.

Both newcomers greeted the entire group with two polite "Ohayo", and from the looks on the duo's faces, everyone moved around so that they could see the faces of the speakers and so they could hear exactly what they were going to say.

The moment that she shifted her eyes from the mysterious person to Tsunade then back to the other, her entire body stiffened, reacting to something that she hadn't sensed or predicted.

Her mind, right away hurriedly analyzed the unexpected awareness, and she compared it to an electrical shock. And as quickly as she compared it to an electrical shock, her mind went into another overdrive and compared it to her slamming into a concrete wall. The two completely different sensations forced her body to give an involuntary shudder, but as quickly as those feelings came, all of it left.

As the feeling abandoned her, she let out a shaky breath and breathed in, trying to regain control of her body.

Breathing in and out, tremors coursing through her body, she sluggishly tried to watch how everyone else was reacting, and thankfully, they were in the same state that she was. Everyone's faces were pale and small shivers came and went every few seconds, reminding them of what just happened. Then of course, no one knew exactly what happened.

After watching the others for a while, she looked to the three that she caught talking, and her eyes widened in surprise.

They were no different than anyone else. Their faces pale, shakings raking their bodies, though their faces were schooled into blankness, their eyes betrayed all their thoughts. And seeing their trembling forms and their confused eyes, she decided not to confront them, fearing that her questions would only do more to confuse than answer, and feeling the guilt for accusing them for knowing more than she was privy to.

Tsunade's voice brought her and everyone else's attention back to the duo standing in front of everyone. "I gather that as most of you were negotiating already, you have all realized that most of the people brought here are clan heirs. The ones that aren't clan heirs were called here by Tsurugi Tenkou," gesturing to the girl to next to her.

The Hokage's eyes shifting over to the girl, all eyes moved to the girl, who stepped forward. Tsurugi bowed graceful, her black yukata not at all constraining her movements, and everyone bowed back politely.

"To make one thing clear before we begin, I'm not a girl. I'm a boy."

Everyone stared.

Then blinked.

Then stared.

Then blinked again.

Then they all thought, "_HOLY SHIT! SHE'S A GUY!"_

Tsurugi giggled afterward, seeing everyone's reaction to her—great, _his_ real gender. Seeing that the girl—shit, the boy laughing at them, Tenten couldn't help but curse all males that were gender-confused.

Beside the girl--&, the _boy_, Tsunade turned to glare at her companion and scolded the younger. "Stop it, Tenkou. They think you're gender-confused."

The extremely feminine boy pouted at her and whined, "I'm not gender-confused!"

Everyone snorted.

Tsunade bluntly looked at the boy and said, "Then you're making them gender-confused, so whenever they meet a new person on the streets, they'll call a girl a boy and a boy a girl."

Everyone sweatdropped. They, like hell, didn't want to do that.

With the same pout, Tsurugi acquiesced. "Fine, fine. I won't taunt them anymore."

Slowly, the pout and the carefree demeanor faded away to be replaced by a grim and humorless shinobi, and the change of facial expression was gradual enough so that all of them could see the change, and it uttered terrified them. Usually, when shinobi's emotions changed as drastically as Tsurugi's had, then nothing they say will ever be good news.

"I'll start off with a history lesson, and everyone, better pay good attention because this history lesson involves all of your families," declared Tsurugi authoritatively.

All around her, Tenten could see people nod solemnly. Tsunade had never called a meeting for clan heirs, and thinking back to her history lessons in the Academy, she couldn't think of a time ever. So whatever this Tsurugi had to say after asking Tsunade to call a meeting of all available clan heirs had to be good and enlightening.

"Konoha was founded here about seventy years. Initially, it was just a ninja unit made up of the Shodai Hokage, the Nidaime Hokage, their family, and others clans that had alliances with their clan, such as the Hyuuga," looking pointedly at Neji, "the Nara," looking at Shikamaru, "and other various shinobi clans. It was only after the First Great Shinobi War that this village diversified and spread out, changing from just a ninja unit to something more like a village."

Some idiot from behind her lost in the crowd of people yelled out, "We already know this stuff!"

Immediately, Tsurugi's eyes narrowed dangerously, but he calmly asked, "Then how many siblings did the Shodai Hokage have?"

The same idiot laughed and said, "Are you an idiot? Everyone knows that the Shodai Hokage only had one brother."

Both Tsunade and Tsurugi smirked, and those that saw their identical mocking smirks shuddered at the possibilities those smirks could mean. Slightly surprisingly, it was Tsunade that drawled coolly. "Baka… My ojii-san had _two _brothers and _one sister_."

Jaws dropped in surprise, and they all gaped at the two smirking figures.

Tenten stared at the two; then somehow, the entire history of Konoha she had learned from the Academy seemed false and contrived compared to the truth that she learned from the granddaughter of the Shodai Hokage. All Academy graduates learned in their classes about the Shodai Hokage and his brother, the Nidaime Hokage, and the Nidaime was his only sibling. Tsunade was the last remaining grandchild or rather descendent of the Shodai Hokage, and she had never made any move to correct the Academy curriculum, neither had the Sandaime who was appointed by the Nidaime, so everyone automatically assumed it was correct.

"How is that possible? All sources don't mention anything about any other family members," someone asked.

"Because the rest of the clan was wiped from the memory of Konoha," Tsurugi easily replied.

"Then how do you relate to all of this, Tsurugi?" asked Shikamaru.

The weapon-wielding kunoichi looked towards the genius, and saw his face pulled into a calm and determined expression. Seeing his face, she mentally sighed and inwardly grumbled about geniuses and how they caught onto things faster than the rest of the ordinary people. She looked back at the shinobi beside Tsunade and imperceptibly stepped back in surprise. Tsurugi's face was withdrawn, and his cerulean eyes weren't directed at them but looked past them into a memory than none of them had.

With that far-away look in his eyes, Tsurugi responded evenly yet almost reluctantly, "I am the great-grandson of the older brother of both the Shodai Hokage and the Nidaime Hokage, thus I am Tsunade's second cousin once removed."

All the people gathered stared at the newcomer and took in the new information with vigor, thinking of possible ways to utilizing it to their advantage.

Abruptly, Tsurugi shook himself out of his memories, and his eyes unexpectedly hardened, the previous memories leaving no traces of ever having been there.

"Our clan had been here before the founding of Konoha, and we have never had any need for a shinobi establishment. The daimyo of Fire Country had never needed one with all the various clans in Fire Country aiding him, but with the advent of so many shinobi villages in neighboring countries, we could not ignore the lack of one in Fire Country.

So my great-grandfather, the clan head, sent Tsunade's grandfather, the Shodai Hokage, and the Nidaime Hokage out to garner alliances and support of various clans to build a shinobi village in Fire Country, and it was on their travels that the Hyuuga, the Nara, the Aburame, and other ninja clans came together to found Konoha. As I previously said, this group was initially a ninja unit, not a real shinobi village, until the end of the First Great Shinobi War.

When they all returned here after traveling together, the clans were all introduced to the rest of our clan but weren't all that amenable with a clan that had sent only two members to garner support. It took months of cooperation and the knowledge that only the Shodai Hokage would be seen by the village for all the clans to finally honor the alliances, but it took the First Great Shinobi War to garner the loyalty of the infant village to our clan.

Despite the scorn given to our clan for sending out only two of our members to negotiate alliances, we were the only clan that sent out all our members to protect our fledging village, and so our clan suffered the most casualties during the First War, and we showed the other clans what loyalty to our village meant and that we would sacrifice our own lives and our own clan for the sake of the friendship between the clans and for the sake of the survival of Konoha.

So the friendship between the clans of Konoha grew until all clans deferred to my great-grandfather for advice in the Konoha construction even though the Nidaime was supposed to be in charge of construction of general infrastructure. It was on the advice of my great-grandfather that all the estates of shinobi clans were placed where they are today to avoid conflict between clans, while the Nidaime took charge of shinobi and civilian areas. The Shodai worked on the shinobi formation, and he also created the great forest in and surrounding Konoha using his Mokuton abilities, providing Konoha with a near impenetrable protection.

A few years before Tsunade was born, a clan from Lightning Country that our clan has rivaled with for decades, even before the formation of Konoha, entered Konoha unnoticed since our shinobi ranks weren't strong and consisted of men and women that had only recently become shinobi for the sake of the village. So this clan, the Metsubo clan, bypassed gate security and stole their way to our clan estates. At the time, my great-grandfather was with his two younger brothers organizing shinobi formations around the village, so when the Metsubo clan struck our clan estates, they decimated nearly our entire clan, slaughtering about ninety members in one night alone.

The remaining members of our clan then spread out into Konoha, leaving only the Head Family to live at our clan estates. Our clan members married into various members of other clans, and though we aren't known for any kekkai genkai, our clan members have a large chakra capacity and extremely exact chakra control. One thing our clan is known for is the perfection of chakra control techniques taught throughout the village today, but anyway, our clan spread out into Konoha and have continuously served and protected the village though the members were known to be a part of our clan.

Because of the massacre, the Head Family of our clan decided to forgo the usage of any surname and would be known to other people by just our first names, all to obscure the name of our clan and to avoid another massacre. As time went on, people realized that the Head Family did this and started targeting members of the Head Family, especially during the Second Great Shinobi War, in which several members of the Head Family died. So, the Head Family kept on the usage of forgoing our surname but creating an alias for the eyes of the world to view, once again to protect us.

At the end of the Second Great Shinobi War, all of our members, including ones that weren't a part of the Head Family, created aliases if their names hadn't changed since the first ordinance, and our clan was virtually forgotten. Technically, our clan was forgotten by the time that Tsunade was born, but that's irrelevant.

Then just all the shinobi villages got a bit of peace, those dumb-as-hell idiots from Iwagakure no Sato had to invade our current ally, Kusagakure no Sato and start yet another great shinobi war. Our clan, tired of the fighting, decided to send most if not all of our members out onto the battlefield; actually, the Head Family discouraged this action, but since our clan was full of hardened, war-mongering, blood-lusting shinobi, most of the clan just ignored the Head Family's advice.

And just like it always had, our clan's actions came back and bit us in the butt; the rest of the clan was killed in action during this war, and the Head Family was all that was left of our clan. Then a few months before the end of the war, Iwa sent out a squad of assassins to utterly annihilate the clan that produced so many shinobi known and capable of highly destructive techniques, and so they found us and killed off all Head Family members, save for Tsunade, who had left Konoha a long time ago, and my father, who was on the battlefield.

My father returned to an empty house in his home village, and he abandoned it, seeing that there was no point in living in an empty house. So our clan estates were left abandoned and unkempt since the end of the Third Great Shinobi War. My father married, and then naught a year or two later, the Kyuubi attacked and he died just as I was born."

As Tsurugi finished up his narration, no one said anything, and Tenten looked around, shocked and saddened as she was by the account of his clan. The males of the crowd were stony-faced and kept their faces hard to read, while females bit their lips trying to keep from reaching out to comfort the orphan. She too felt the urge to comfort the boy that looked too girly to be a boy and could pass for a girl if he tried.

Slowly as the silence faded away into comprehension and as everyone regained their standing, a random clan heir yelled out mildly, "That still doesn't explain why we're here."

Tsurugi looked at the faces above them, the faces of the Hokage Mountain, and his face was contemplative for a few seconds before he responded. "I was getting to that part."

He looked back at them and pointed to the mountain that he had been looking at just a few moments ago. "Our clan estates are in Evacuation Valley, and they have always been there."

Several members of the audience frowned, uncertain as to why he had told them.

"After the first massacre during the reign of the Shodai Hokage, the clan heads of all clans in Konoha came together and discussed their inability to aid our clan in our time of need. Because of the overwhelming sense of loyalty and friendship that bonded all of the clans, the clans couldn't help but feel useless and weak when news of our clan's massacre reached them, so they came together and made a contract."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Shikamaru stiffen. The chuunin, obviously, knew something about a contract just from the way that he had stiffened when Tsurugi had first mentioned it. He opened his mouth, then closed it, reassessing his thoughts and his mind probably flying through hundreds of scenarios, but finally asked, "What kind of contract?"

Tsurugi gave them all an eerie smile.

Tenten shuddered. That smile ran shivers down her back and raised fears that she didn't know she had. As a kunoichi, she knew all her fears, but there were some things about people that utterly terrified her though she couldn't say they were fears. Apparently, eerie smiles that were the main characteristics of insane mass murderers were one of those things.

With that same eerie smile adorning his face, the feminine boy answered, "A contract of servitude and absolute loyalty."

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Contracts of that caliber took chakra of enormous proportions to create and the effects of those kinds of contracts were often felt generations later, she remembered from her reading in a scroll about sealing, though she didn't know exactly what all that meant save for the first portion of using a butt-load of chakra. Mulling over what he said, she remembered that those contracts invoked blood… didn't they? And her eyes widened even more in realization.

Cerulean eyes flicked over the disbelieving and shocked faces of his peers. Licking his lips, he slowly opened his mouth to explain more. "Your ancestors thought that by swearing their servitude and absolute loyalty, they could atone for their weaknesses and sins, and so they wrote the contract. Each clan head then proceeded to give a drop of his or her to pledge those that had the same blood as he or she did to the contract, and after the ceremony was finished, the went to my great-grandfather and bound him as they extracted a drop of blood for each clan that had given their pledge. Thus they bound all their descendents to all the descendents of my great-grandfather's line in servitude and absolute loyalty."

"So you're saying we're your slaves?"

Tsurugi's shoulders drooped, and just reading his face for a moment, she could transparently see the anguish and remorse on his face. She suddenly felt the guilt that weighed heavily upon the shinobi's shoulders and mind, and regretted that she had for a moment accused him of what Neji had shouted out, though she could certainly understand why Neji had shouted. The feelings that came out as waves from the shinobi were just so heartbreaking that she knew down to her core that he didn't want any of it.

Finally, Tsurugi replied, "So long as the contract exists, any descendent of the clans that swore loyalty and servitude will have to obey any of my orders." He paused and took a great shuddering breath before continuing. "One of the terms of the contract was that all heirs of clans that signed the contract have to serve a one-year term of servitude to the heir of the Head Family, starting on the heir's sixteenth birthday."

Instantly, protests rang out throughout the area, and the anger fed upon other's anger and grew. Seeing the acrimony among her peers, Tenten turned to the bringer of bad news and felt the despondency of the situation, and she realized that he could order them to not be angry and none of them would be angry at all, though it made absolutely no sense how their free will was taken away.

She realized that none of this could have happened; Tsurugi could have just ordered them to stay with him for a year, and they would have no idea why but they would still do it because of an urge that defied all physics and morals. But he chose to tell them all this; he chose to tell them that they have no free will when faced with a descendent of Tsurugi's great-grandfather. He didn't have to take any of the crap that the other heirs were dishing out, but he was taking it because apparently, Tsurugi felt that though they had no free will, they had the right to know what was going on.

Although she had a mind to yell at them, she didn't have enough nerve to do so, and the guilt and horrid feeling that she got from realizing that she couldn't do it made her feel the disgrace of dishonoring her title as a kunoichi. But thankfully, Tsunade did it for her.

"WHY DON'T YOU IDIOTS JUST SHUT UP?"

Everyone stared at the Hokage in shock and fear but directly shut up.

Tsunade's face was set into a scowl, and the look of rage she had on her face had many of them shaking in their shoes. She glared at them, and loudly told them, "Since you all don't have the brain to listen to Tenkou, I'll explain it to your bumbling set of morons."

"Tenkou's sixteenth birthday will be in three months, but since he has a six month mission in two weeks, he will be gone most of the time that you idiots have to serve your term, so you all get a reprieve, a three month reprieve from a yearlong term, though I don't think you all deserve one for disrespecting Tenkou's choice of explaining all this to you. He could have just left you all to rot; he could have ordered you to serve him for a year and you wouldn't have the sense to disobey him."

Sakura, sensing the uproar die down, asked, "What mission does Tsurugi-san have that requires a three month leave?"

Tsunade turned an expressionless face to her apprentice and easily replied, "One that only elite jounin are privy to."

Tenten frowned; now that didn't help. She, too, was curious as to what mission would take Tsurugi away from such an important event such as their… she shuddered… their servitude. She had never seen Tsurugi in her life, but apparently he was a shinobi of Konoha that had been away for years and was only now returning to invoke a contract that she thought had never existed before. He returns but suddenly has to leave again for a mission in two weeks. A three month mission was rare and rarely given out to any shinobi or team without several months notice; but then she could understand as that Tsurugi had just returned… She was getting off track, wasn't she?

Neji certainly wasn't privy to the information; after all, Neji was only a rookie jounin and didn't have enough rank or influence to pull up the information on Tsurugi's mission. So, she couldn't ask Neji. She could ask Gai-sensei, but… she shuddered again. That was a horrible thought; she didn't want to even contemplate asking Gai-sensei for the information.

"Why were we overcome with the feel of the contract activating?"

Everyone turned to look at Shikamaru, who stared pointedly at Tsurugi and Tsunade.

Tsurugi smiled a weak smile. "Because a blood descendent of all the clans that signed the contract and the only two members of my clan are here. Our presence invokes the activation of the contract."

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed and he asked, "Where is the member of the Uchiha clan, then?"

All breath was held as the Uchiha clan was mentioned.

The bishounen pointed to a tree not too far away from where they all were standing, "Hatake-san over there holds a Sharingan eye, containing the DNA of one Uchiha Obito, and I—" he stopped, chocking on his own words, "my… my mother was a member of the Uchiha clan."

Eyes widened as they took in the meaning of those words.

"I won't get the Sharingan if that's what you all are thinking," easily said Tsurugi.

Each person, then, could feel the tense that hung thick in the air and were relieved of that tension as one brave yet stupid soul asked, "How can we get out of the contract?"

Tsurugi shook his head. "All of you are within a two year range of my age, so you all must participate, so says the contract. Any of the other heirs are relieved of this duty and the chance will not be open to them."

Reservedly, Neji asked suspiciously, "What do you mean by chance?"

She saw the slightly amused look on Tsurugi's face and felt relieved that the somber mood that ruled over the boy had dissipated with the tension. He told Neji, or rather all of them, "You don't think you're going to be just serving, do you? My clan is known for all the chakra techniques we've developed, so when you're serving the term, you'll be learning advanced and very refined chakra control techniques that others aren't privy to."

The promise of chakra control techniques immediately endeared all the shinobi clan heirs to the feminine boy, and slowly, the others, seeing that the shinobi heirs were no longer fighting the contract, relented.

Once the hubbub died, Tsunade garnered their attention once more. "Are there any questions?" No one said anything. "Very well. You will be notified when Tenkou returns from his mission. You will have those months to yourselves, but make sure to keep yourselves available once he returns or else…" she trailed off, leaving the threat looming over the group. "You're dismissed!"

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_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

This is the shortest of all my chapters so far, and excluding Chapter Two, took longer than all the others. Usually, I set up a week for me to write out the entire chapter, but apparently, I spent two days figuring out the Naruto timeline and exactly what happened at what time. It took me two full days because I kept on making drafts and drafts before coming up with the final timeline that would fit the plot. I figured out that the Yondaime was about 23 or 24 when he died sealing the Kyuubi; he was about 22 when he became the Hokage. The only clues that I had were: he became a Genin at 10, Jiraiya was his instructor 24 years before the start of the series, the Kyuubi sealing was a year or two after the end of the Third Great Shinobi War. So using that information, I deducted that the Yondaime was 22 by the time he died, but given that no information when exactly in the year, I had to take into account months, so I added a year or two to that age… so voila, Yondaime was 23 to 24 when he died. Okay… I got off track. For those that don't want to spend a long time hearing me rant about all the calculations I took about everything, since it took an extremely long time to figure out everything, I'm going to be getting a picture of the timeline I made and I'll post it on my LJ so visit my profile and I'll have it up in a day or two.

This chapter was entirely all from Tenten's POV. I never thought I'd make a chapter just from one person's POV, but that bridge has been crossed and once again, I've hit the bridge that is made of the wood of 'must have an Interlude'. So Interlude it is! I haven't even remotely finished Chapter 4's intended length, but if I start of the next POV, it'll go longer than 15 pages, so this chapter will stay how it is unless I get a beta. This chapter was all explanation and helps the plot move along a little, but once I start the Interlude, plot will be moving along much faster since I'm actually going into the Gaara rescue arc (I'm sorry if I'm spoiling this to anyone).

I'm not sure, but I plan to have the next chapter or rather the Interlude out by next Tuesday or so. I really need to finish up the rest of this chapter's plot before I can get into Chapter 5. Since I'm putting in some canon plot, I'm pushing back the Naruto's 3-year travel arc to later on. I might as well explain now rather than later. There are going to be three arcs; Gaara rescue arc is only a mini-arc in the Naruto as Tsurugi Tenkou arc. There will be a mini arc about Naruto's three years away from Konoha, but that's not one of the three arcs. Then, there will be the Hebi and Akatsuki arc, and the final arc where everything is resolved. I'm actually not going to talk about the last arc since it's so far away and I only have so much time.

There are a lot of things I don't have to explain in this chapter, so I'm going to finish up my author's note. Oh yes… in the previous version, I had a character named Shinkana Ayuma; well, in this version, she's not going to be called that. She'll have a different name, but she'll be the same person.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of the story.

Review!


	6. Interlude: Hope for the Forsaken

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

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**Interlude: Hope for the Forsaken**

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She had been called in not five minutes after the meeting on top of the Hokage Tower had ended. Throughout the entire meeting, she gathered information, analyzing it and storing it for later use, but now, she wondered if there was any later use for the things that Tsurugi had said during the meeting.

She sat on the bench outside the Hokage's office and waited for her shisou to call her in. Her head buried in her hands, she felt the hopelessness fill her and could do nothing to stop it.

_Plitter platter…_

Her head rising from her hands, she looked up out the window and saw the sky outside of Konoha was graying and dark; gentle droplets of waters hit the glass of the windows before sliding down slowly down the windowpane. Just five minutes ago, the sky had been clear and the sun shining, but now, the sun disappeared behind the clouds that rained down on the village.

Her eyes staring out into the darkness of rain that covered the area for miles for what she could see, she breathed in a shuddering breath before letting it out. The rain was calming; it hadn't rained for weeks and suddenly, the rain came pouring down. Thunder rumbled above her, but she paid no attention to it. The rain was all that she needed to chase away the hopelessness.

"Sakura."

She turned and put on a grateful smile as her former sensei walked towards her, a concerned expression on his face, or rather what could be seen of his face. Getting to her feet, she asked him, "Tsunade-sama asked to see you too, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi merely nodded and didn't say anything as he studied her for a moment longer.

She looked away; the scrutiny brought her paranoia back full force. Kakashi knew something and he apparently thought that she knew of it too by the way that he was studying her so intently, but she knew nothing that he probably didn't know already. Yet… there was still a memory squirming in the back of her mind that caused her paranoia; probably the same memory that Kakashi had too.

Her jounin-sensei stepped back and smiled warmly. "She asked for Gai and his team as well."

She nodded. The only reason why she, Kakashi, and Team Gai would all be called together would be for a mission, a high ranking one at that. At least, the mission would help push away the thoughts that ran rampant around her mind, but she knew it was only a way to delay the inevitable.

The door opened beside them, and they both moved their heads to see who came out.

Tsurugi Tenkou emerged from the door way but didn't seem to move any farther from it. The way that he held himself, she could only deduce that he would join them on their mission or he was privy to whatever her sensei needed to tell them. Before the meeting, she would have thought the former, but now, after the meeting, she couldn't tell.

In her mind, Tsurugi was a person that was no longer subject to the law. In a way, he was above the law; he was the head of the clan that both he and Tsunade were in, so Tsunade was honor-bound to obey whatever orders the boy gave and she was the Hokage. He had leverage in almost any political or legal matter in the village, and there was nothing that any law could prevent his ascension so long as Tsunade was Hokage.

Just yesterday, she trusted him not to do something that would betray that trust, and true, he did not harm or hurt that trust, but now, whenever she just things about him, her mind cringed away, huddling in a corner from the cold that he exuded, the cold that she yesterday didn't notice.

He stared at them for a long while, studying their features seeming to define the impression of him just by the expressions of their faces and their stance. Done with his examination, he said to them, "The Hokage will now see you."

She took stared at him but not for as long. Getting to her feet, she gave a sideways glance at her former sensei and noted that he had pulled out his perverted book (that needed to burn in all nine layers of Hell) and had already started reading it while Tsurugi studied them. Ignoring the sudden tick that she got from just being beside the pervert of a sensei, she passed Tsurugi holding the door open with Kakashi trailing her and openly advocating his opinions of porn in public.

Entering her shisou's office, she immediately noticed that the lights were off and the only light in the room came from the darkness outside. The room as usual was full of paperwork, finished and to be completed, and most of it surrounded the lone desk in the room. Lightning lit up the sky and the room, Tsunade a dark figure against the white of outside, before returning back into darkness, and thunder cracked.

Her body automatically moving to a spot a meter away from her sensei but little to the side, she turned to see the door still held open by Tsurugi after Kakashi came in, taking a spot near her. Not a moment later, Team Gai walked in and stood across the room from both Sakura and Kakashi, all of them forming some sort of broken semicircle.

Once everyone was in their spots, Tsurugi let the door behind him gently close and stepped up between Team Gai and Kakashi and Sakura and directly in front of Tsunade.

Her eyes flicked over to Tsurugi, and she briefly wondered why he was standing on their side of Tsunade. Surely, if he was there only to hear out their mission specifications, he would be standing next to Tsunade; but he was standing with them.

Pushing down the dread that abruptly rose, she turned her gaze back to the Hokage and kept her gaze there, just to avoid any unwanted thoughts and any thoughts that might incite an improper response.

Tsunade's eyes casually perused the faces of the shinobi in front of her, and her face was cast in an unreadable expression. "The Kazekage has been taken by Akatsuki."

_CRACK!_

The room lit up once more before being enshrouded in shadows followed by the loud thunderous crack of lightning.

She stood at an absolute standstill as they all stared at Tsunade. As soon as she heard those words, her mind raced through all her memories of going into classified files and digging up any information that Tsunade might have on the organization.

Digging up any information on Akatsuki was difficult and more difficult still was hiding that she knew and had found out by looking into classified information from the Hokage. As the apprentice to the Hokage, she certainly had access to many classified files that even normal jounins would have difficulty in accessing; she had tried not to abuse the privilege since it was only there because she often times helped her shisou with the normal everyday paperwork that piled sky-high. But it was too much of a temptation, and she had succumbed if not for herself but for the sake of her team, a team that ended three years ago.

She searched for any information concerning the Uchiha clan, especially the oh-so-illusive Uchiha Itachi. Three years ago, she had known very little about the Uchiha massacre other than _he _was the last member of the blue-blooded clan; back then, exactly how _he_ was the last member of the clan had never crossed her mind, the thought probably blocked by the fanatical obsession she embraced. Yet as soon as both of her teammates had left the village and her duties as Tsunade's apprentice allowed free time, she used her access privilege to her advantage and searched for information regarding the clan and found the perpetrator to be none other than _his_ older brother, Uchiha Itachi.

After finding the name, she immediately started cross-referencing the name with any other records that she could get a hold of. Of course, she couldn't access all files but majority of them, she could; even with her high access privilege, she still wasn't able to get the information. But then one day, out of the blue, her shisou had fallen asleep while reviewing several files that she had never seen before. Taking advantage of the situation, she immediately started reading the files and discovered the existence of Akatsuki.

Apparently, Akatsuki was an organization of nine S-rank nuke-nin, one of them being Uchiha Itachi. In the files, she learned only that Uchiha Itachi was partnered with the equally as infamous Hoshigake Kisame from Kirigakure no Sato and that Naruto was the target of the pair. Even though she had the information, she couldn't figure out exactly why the duo was after Naruto, and now, with more information regarding Akatsuki, she still couldn't understand. Until she understood the relationship and the similarity between Naruto and the Kazekage, she knew that she wouldn't be able to understand exactly why Naruto was targeted.

"Team Gai, you will head to Suna, determine the situation, relay it back to Konoha. After that, follow the orders of Suna and back them up. Sakura, you will be the medic-nin; and you, Kakashi, will assist in tracking Gaara if the Suna Council permits it."

After Tsunade stopped, everyone in the room turned to look at Tsurugi, who merely smiled back, one of those creepy smiles seen only on the faces of insane mass serial murderers.

With an easygoing smile on her face, one _very_ similar to the one on Tsurugi's face, Tsunade went on saying, "And Tenkou will be there as a seal master."

She frowned, not completely understanding why this shinobi was going with them, and asked, "Isn't Kakashi-sensei good enough with seals?"

The easygoing smile on Tsunade's face faded into a grim one, and she could suddenly feel the coldness creeping closer. Just as Tsunade was about to answer, someone else answered for her.

"Hatake-san is not a seal master, and it is likely that Akatsuki will do something to the Kazekage that will eventually kill him. I can stop that," declared Tsurugi, firmly. The look on his face was resolute and just looking at him, she knew that he could do everything he claimed, but there was still that coldness that kept creeping deeper and deeper.

Looking around at the others in the room, she protested albeit weakly, "We don't know anything about you."

Tsurugi's face went from resolute and determined to pensive yet frosty. With a slightly confused tone, he replied carefully, "I told you my entire clan history just a few minutes ago, Haruno-san, and I do believe that I've already displayed my abilities to you as well."

She once more looked at the others in the room and saw no support. She gazed at her former sensei's face the longest, trying the best to decipher what the aloof expression on his face meant.

"Sakura."

She looked at her shishou and saw the stern and somewhat disappointed look on her shisou's face. She had never expected to see that look on her shishou's face and quickly looked away, trying to hide her face behind her hair, to hide the hurt expression she knew she wore. The coldness chilled her from the inside out, and she couldn't help but shiver despite the normal room temperature.

And she wondered, '_What will make this cold disappear?_'

* * *

Kakashi watched his former student with care. It wasn't like her to protest Tsurugi's placement on the mission; she usually went along with whatever the Hokage ordered to do. Yet today out of all days to protest and start rebelling under her teacher's orders, she had been adamantly against Tsurugi when the rest of the group knew the advantage of having a seal master joining them.

Seal masters were rare in Konoha. There were plenty of shinobi that had some sealing knowledge, and some would have the nerve to boast of having the same prowess his Sensei had. Usually, those people ended up dead attempting a sealing. Having a seal mastery was really a true honor; no seal mastery had been granted since Sensei had gotten his.

But then suddenly out of nowhere, a totally unknown shows up and presents a seal that could be basically called the cure to Orochimaru's cursed seal.

Most shinobi have some sealing knowledge, and it's enough to get them through most situations, and again, seal masters were extremely rare, not only in Konoha but in all shinobi countries. The sealing knowledge that most shinobi knew came from years—_years _of experience and knowledge acquired and needed for missions. For someone like Tsurugi to claim to be a seal master, then he can undeniably back up his claim.

Sealing was not a subject to trifle with. Out of all shinobi areas of expertise, sealing was probably the most dangerous. One small mistake, such as not putting enough pressure in writing a character or not focusing for a split second, could cost the lives of the target and the sealer, and maybe the people within the vicinity, depending on exactly on how severe the mistake. Since sealing had such a high rate of casualties, many shinobi tended to avoid learning the subject, unless again, it was required or acquired.

Sensei always said that only idiots learn sealing and only idiots who can't stop being idiots die from sealing. Honestly, he never understood his Sensei's philosophy but strangely enough, it made some sort of sense.

So, applying his Sensei's philosophy to the situation at hand, Tsurugi had to be actually good at sealing since he didn't die from it already.

Glancing at Tsurugi as Sakura turned away from looking at the Hokage, he saw a strange flash of emotion cross Tsurugi's usually guarded expression. He couldn't decide whether it was disappointment or sadness, but the tension around Tsurugi unexpectedly got heavier. Just as the flash of emotion appeared, it was replaced by another more amiable lightheartedness.

"Don't worry about me," Tsurugi reassured with a careless wave of his hand. "I'm a special jounin and I'll handle myself, so pay me no mind. I'll only interfere with the mission if the situation requires a need of a seal master."

The air was lighter but the tension around Tsurugi was still the same, though no one noticed it save he, Gai, and the Hokage.

Once sure, Kakashi turned to the Hokage and told her. "I have no qualms with Tsurugi on the mission."

Sakura's head spun around to look at him, but he didn't dare look at her in case she found something in his expression that would cause her to protest all the more. He kept an eye on Tsurugi and was mildly surprised when the sure sign of gratitude and happiness shined in the boy's eyes. Without warning, he realized that Tsurugi was just a boy.

Tsurugi was only a boy. Even though he was fifteen and a shinobi, well on his way to greater things, Tsurugi needed someone to stand up for him and judging from the expression that was on the boy's face not just a moment ago, he hadn't had been accepted when he was younger. The boy was just that: a boy; and it reminded him of just how much children had to lose in order to protect the ones they loved.

Gai spoke up from the other side of the room in his calmer-than-usual-but-not-normal voice. "I agree with Kakashi. Considering the Kazekage's condition, it would be advisable to send Tsurugi on the mission."

Tsunade nodded and explained a little bit more. "I would be sending Jiraiya with you but he has to go somewhere and gather more information."

Everyone gave a small nod, understanding their predicament.

Kakashi gave just another sideways glance at Sakura, and from the look of utter confusion on her face, he knew that she had concluded that he was just being his normal 'I don't have a problem with anything'. Never had he contradicted her in any of her or her teammates' conclusions of him, and he doubted that he ever would. It just wouldn't be him to do so, so he let everyone think whatever they wanted to think.

His gaze going from Sakura to Tsurugi, he stared at the boy before blinking and staring again, only the second time, he saw the same thing he had been seeing for the past several days. For just the smallest second, he thought he had seen… he thought he had seen… Naruto.

An older, mature Naruto dressed in a black kimono under a plain white haori stood exactly where Tsurugi was standing.

Then the moment passed and Tsurugi was there once more.

As if feeling his stares, the boy turned, and once more, a flash of a cheerful grin on an older Naruto's face compelled him to blink, and the image was gone once again. The boy looked at him with a genuinely confused look. "What's wrong, Hatake-san?"

Looking at the feminine boy, he knew that no one knew this person except maybe the two Sannin in the room. The only person to have taught Tsurugi most of what the boy knows about sealing had to be Jiraiya as the man was the other of Konoha's two seal masters; so it was obvious that Jiraiya would know the boy. Tsunade… well, who doesn't she know well?

This mission. It would help all of them learn more about Tsurugi, and most of all, it would help him learn why he saw Naruto whenever he was supposed to be seeing Tsurugi.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

* * *

Jiraiya stood at the gates, Tsunade at his side, both waiting for the arrival of the shinobi leaving for the mission. The rain had let up a few minutes ago but the sky was still dark and gray. The ground they stood on was moist but not wet or soggy enough for their feet to start sinking into the mud.

He looked at the road out of the village and said tonelessly, "We all are leaving soon."

Beside him, Tsunade just nodded.

"He has to relearn all his lessons again," he said, without a look at his teammate. "Out there, he lost all he learned just to keep himself safe. He lost most of the trust that he had in himself and in others, so he must relearn his lessons again."

His hands clenched, and she saw the tension in his posture. He knew that she wanted to say something, but still she offered no words, just understanding. He wanted to drink away his sorrows again before leaving; he already drank his ass off a few minutes ago, but he hadn't drank anything away. She understood because she too drank away sorrows though they always came back with a trembling sadness.

Turning up to look at the gray sky, he closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath, the only sign of inner turmoil. The tension in his stance ceased, and all calm returned to the Frog Sennin.

The stress gone from his shoulders, his gaze turned towards Tsunade, and he immediately saw the worry around her eyes though the rest of her face was relayed none of her other emotions. Inwardly, he smiled a grim smile; Tsunade worried about the brat just like he did. He had told her about what had happened during their three year travel abroad and the changes that it wrought on the brat that they both cared deeply for. Since she now knew about their adventures, she too felt the worry and guilt that he too bore when he was first confronted with the event just a week after leaving Konoha.

But that was the past; there was nothing either of them could do to change what had happened. The only thing they could do was support the brat in all his endeavors and be there when he needed them.

"There's a jutsu he learned, Tsunade," he started, abruptly casting them away from the string of negative thoughts. "He started learning this jutsu, and I didn't tell you this because adding this information to what I already told you would be too much."

Again, she nodded.

Eyes glancing around and his senses spreading out trying to locate any eavesdroppers, he lowered his voice and said, "I've warned him against using the jutsu just before we arrived in the village, but just in case, I should warn you that—"

Jiraiya stopped and the two turned to watch five figures coming towards them. As the figures approached them, they soon recognized the five as Team Gai with Sakura, all five of them conversing in low voices and trying to rein in their emotions. As soon as the approaching were within hearing range, both he and Tsunade tuned their hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"What more do we know about Tsurugi?"

"His style, the Zen'in no Buddha, is an effective style and his speed is up to par, so I believe we don't have to worry about defending the seal master," the other of the two of three younger shinobi that had been there for the evaluation calmly replied.

They could practically see the frown on Sakura's face as she argued Tsurugi's presence. "We have never worked with him before; think of how it'll affect us."

"As I said, he is a special jounin and capable of defending himself. We do not need to worry about his presence," Neji repeated.

"But—"

"Sakura-san, Neji-kun has a point. Even though I have never seen Tsurugi-kun fight, from both Neji-kun and Gai-sensei's opinion and words of him, he is a very capable shinobi." Surprisingly, that came from Lee, who remained calm and focused, not siding with the person that he exclaimed to love.

"Lee, your flames of youth have grown stronger! After this mission, we will rejoice by running around the village one thousand times on two hands blindfolded before nightfall!"

"Hai, Gai-sensei!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

And it kept on going on and on like that, with the rising sun effect in the background. Everyone in range of that… um… _scene_ cringed and inched away from the spandex-wearing duo, even the people that weren't relatively near the two.

As soon as the spandex fest started, Jiraiya and Tsunade tuned out the conversation knowing that it would amount to nothing and it would only be damaging on the psyche. Shuddering, they briefly wondered whether or not to wash their eyes with bleach to get the image out of their heads.

Before long, the group of five joined by Kakashi, who apparently fell out of a tree reading his Icha Icha Tactics that he didn't know he had but left the matter aside since the book was the brand new Icha Icha Tactics that hadn't been released yet, reached the gates. They looked around and spotted Tsunade and Jiraiya, but not the subject of the conversation during their walk.

Sakura gave a light frown, not one that would overly display her dislike of the last member of their impromptu team, and her hands clenched into fists. Whatever she was going to say to the two elder Sannin, she decided not to voice her opinion and let her thoughts stew in her mind.

Jiraiya glanced at Tsunade, who frowned at her apprentice's actions. The frown let absolutely no doubt in his mind that Tsunade didn't understand why Sakura distrusted Naruto. Tsunade was shielded from the overwhelming coldness because she was Naruto's blood relative; even though he too was related to the blonde (now raven-haired bishounen), there was no blood connection. Most people were able to ignore the coldness, but some people were more attuned to chakra signatures and they felt the cold that unconsciously and reluctantly flowed from Naruto.

The coldness that the boy exuded could overwhelm anyone who was more attuned to chakra, and he felt it before, several times during the three year trip. The times he did feel that cold, it came with an inexplicable sense of fear and sometimes, a killing intent that he hadn't felt since the incident at Naruto's birth.

Of course, Naruto himself couldn't feel the cold, and whenever he was in range, the coldness was gone as if it had never been there in the first place. Naruto's seemed to be the eye of the storm, but every other place was caught up in the middle of the storm.

"Jiraiya-sama, can you tell us anything about Tsurugi-san…" Sakura trailed off as her head turned to the direction of the last approaching figure.

He too looked in the direction of his approaching student and frowned. The brat was wearing usual attire but still disguised as a raven-haired bishounen, which still annoyed him to hell. The white haori and the black kimono; sometimes, he wished he had killed those monks back at the temple before they gave the brat all those kimonos and formal wear.

The only one difference that he noted was that the brat wore his hitai-ate around his neck instead of on his forehead, and his lips quirked up into a grim smile at that. So the brat was actively trying to get the Akatsuki to take notice of him to draw their attention away from the others, all to protect them from the organization after him. Besides, the brat had made a name for himself in his disguise, and many heard how he looked like, especially with a hitai-ate around his neck rather than on his forehead.

As his – heavens forbid that he admit it aloud to anyone, especially the brat himself – student drew closer, all the conversation gradually ceased as everyone's attention focused on the brat.

When he finally reached them, the blonde-turned-bishounen gave everyone a creepy smile, a smile reminiscent of the smile just a while ago. Just from the looks on those that didn't really know the bishounen well (everyone except Jiraiya and Tsunade), they all expected the long-haired boy to say something or do something, but Naruto didn't do anything. He merely waited.

Once they realized that the brat wasn't going to say anything, Kakashi discernibly cleared his throat to gather everyone's attention. "Well, we'll start off with an inventory of everything we have."

All nodded, and the two Sannin just watched as the team took out all their weapons and items that they had with them. Kakashi carefully and meticulously went over each shinobi's inventory, deemed it satisfactory, and moved onto the next person. When he finally reached Naruto, the singular eye blinked in surprise when the boy held out his arms with a bright smile.

From the sidelines, Jiraiya smirked. No one was expecting that, even just looking at him, the brat didn't look like he had anything. In a way, he looked like a civilian if it hadn't been for the shinobi hitai-ate around his neck. The brat was armed in a fashion similar to the Legendary Sannin; all the Sannin hid their weapons and had no weapons seen on their bodies. Of course, out of the three of them, Orochimaru was the one that used weapons most often, but still no one saw Kusanagi since it was kept in the Snake Sennin's stomach.

Not many shinobi nowadays kept all weapons hidden; not many shinobi neglect to carry weapons. Well, maybe 'neglect' wasn't precise enough of a word. His – he couldn't believe that he was admitting it again – student _chose_ not to carry weapons because the brat thought 'it's to big and bulky; it doesn't fit my style'. The brat had the nerve to tell him, the legendary Frog Sennin, that weapons didn't fit his style. The brat didn't carry a scroll like he did either, said it was too '_unappealing'._ Oh, if only the monks hadn't taught the boy how to effectively defend and carry himself…

But enough about what the brat did or did not have on his 'oh so appealing' body…

Those that had finished putting away all their things glanced over worriedly to Kakashi and Naruto.

Sakura frowned lightly and asked, "What's wrong, Kakashi-sensei, Tsurugi-san?"

Kakashi took a step back, indicating that he was finished his inspection, and shook his head. "Nothing. I was just finishing up." The jounin cast a fleeting look at the smiling special jounin before walking away to talk to the entire group.

Both Jiraiya and Tsunade chuckled lightly at the situation. Obviously, Kakashi hadn't remembered how it was like with a seal master; after all, the last time, the man had been a fourteen-year-old boy fighting in the Third Great Shinobi War. Years had gone by, and Kakashi didn't remember all the abilities available to seal masters. They wondered for a moment what his reaction would be when Naruto finally revealed what he hid in his sleeves. After all, those sleeves were quite _voluminous_.

Still, compared to everyone else's baggage, he wore nothing at all. All he had were the clothes on his back apparently.

"Okay, everyone, it's going to take three days to reach Suna; we will make as few stops as possible, but if you don't feel well, we will stop to rest. We can't risk the slightest decrease in manpower until we determine the situation in Suna." Kakashi watched all them carefully, save Gai. Obviously, the two jounin trusted each other to decipher the hidden messages in the explanation. "We are likely to meet up with members of Akatsuki; you are under no circumstance to confront them without either me of Gai at your side."

They nodded, though Naruto's nod was more enthusiastic than the others'.

Kakashi nodded in return.

"Tenkou!"

The team turned around to see a stony-face Jiraiya advancing towards them. His strides were large as he came towards them, more to face the extremely feminine boy of the group. The Sannin stopped in front of Naruto, and he studied his – kami-sama, he had to say it again – student.

Naruto's face was schooled to perfection, fitting his fake persona almost perfectly. The only evidence of worry and anger was the strange glint in the boy's cerulean eyes, and he hoped that when the boy came back, that glint would be replaced by something with a lighter feeling. He knew that what he was going to say was useless, but he couldn't help but need to say the words.

"Tenkou, I know that you are near unflappable, but you're not a god or inhuman at all. Remember that."

The smile that was plastered on the brat's face faded into a set line. He replied stoically, "I know."

Watching the emotions flash across the cerulean eyes, Jiraiya paused before setting his face into a sterner countenance. "Then, I know that you know, but…" Again, he paused before saying, "Don't use that jutsu."

Naruto almost immediately looked down then away but nodded in acquiescence. Before turning back to his team, the boy fought himself into setting his face back into the smiling visage of Tsurugi Tenkou.

Kakashi watched them with careful consideration, and as soon as the confrontation was over, he garnered attention. "Let's go."

Everyone, including… especially Naruto in his Tsurugi Tenkou disguise, nodded, and they all jumped off, leaping away.

Eyes following the shinobi as their figures got steadily smaller in the distance, the Frog Sannin stood there when his teammate walked up beside him. She watched with them, and she didn't offer him any glance to know what he was feeling. Still, she began, "Are you—"

"No, not really," without warning he interrupted. "I trained him. He's been trained. He knows his stuff."

He looked at her and saw her smiling in the direction that the team had departed. She said, "Maturity is a weird thing."

* * *

Walking down the path back, Temari kept thinking back to the cracked cup at the dango shop.

Normally, she would have ignored it and yelled at the waiter to get a new cup of tea, but the sense of foreboding wouldn't leave her be. It kept niggling at the back of her mind; so every once in a while, she would look back in the direction of the dango shop as if the shop was her source of discomfort. Well… it did provide the cup that cracked.

She had left Konoha early this morning and stopped at the dango shop for a brief reprieve and some dango. She wouldn't hear of any news of what was happening in the shinobi world until she reached Suna or until she could contact someone. All of her options left a deep disquietude.

"Temari-san!"

Looking up with caution and slight surprise, she caught sight of a group of shinobi approaching. She wasn't surprised when recognizable faces dropped down behind her as she turned around to face them, her hands twitching in preparation for an unexpected attack. But reaching her sensing out, she felt their chakra signatures and recognized most of them.

She waited as the group caught their breath but her eyes looked straight to the only person of the group that she had never seen. Studying the newcomer, she mentally blanched, '_BISHOUNEN!_'

Despite her immediate reaction to him, she identified the hitai-ate worn he wore around his neck and frowned. She had never seen him before in the village. So, trying for subtle, she reached out with her senses to get a feel of his chakra signature only to discover that he wasn't even there according to her senses. Pulling back, she nodded at him unsteadily.

The bishounen smiled and nodded in return.

The others noticed her perusal of the new member of the group, and immediately, Sakura stepped up to introduce him to her. "This is Tsurugi Tenkou, special jounin and a seal master. He just came back to Konoha after a long term mission." Sakura then turned hesitantly to Tsurugi, "Tsurugi-san, this is—"

"Sabaku no Temari, jounin and older sister to the Godaime Kazekage," Tsurugi interrupted benignly, no malice or ill will intended. Bowing politely, he added, "We've met."

She then frowned, "We have?"

Tsurugi nodded.

When had he met her, and why didn't she remember who he was? Thinking back, she couldn't at all place his face on any of the people that she met in the past; his looks were enough to warrant some space in her memory. But if his looks weren't enough, she could at least recognize the name or at least recognize it through one of her contacts. Yet every time she went through her memory, she could bring up nothing that could prove his previous introduction.

Probably seeing the confused look on her face, he waved the matter off, "It's alright if you've already forgotten me."

With her frown set on her face, she realized that this shinobi was trying to tell her something else. To any normal person, to forget someone was an insult, but Tsurugi pushed it aside as if it wasn't an insult in the first place. In a way, he was implying that he was an important part of her life, or maybe not even in her life, but in the life of someone very close to her. Just from his words alone, she concluded that his name and his guise was a cover for who he really was.

At last, she nodded and turned to the superiors of the group. "What's wrong?"

Both Gai and Kakashi held their faces impassively, and Gai stated, "The Kazekage has been taken by Akatsuki."

"What?" She stared at them, her eyes wide, shock evident on her face. "Gaara?"

The Konoha group didn't say anything, and their silence only confirmed the statement.

Her head drooped, anguish hand in hand with guilt gripping her face, in sudden remembrance. '_The cracked cup.'_

How she hated omens. The cracked cup was probably one of the most common omens to befall anyone, and it always came with bad news to anyone close. That sense of foreboding that followed her from the dango shop was confirmed, and she cursed herself for not trusting whatever god up there that sent her the message.

Her brother's capture came at the worst possible time; the village had let go of the gripping hatred and fear that they had for years since he was born. Now, as Kazekage, he got respect and acknowledgement for his actions though there were times that there was little that he could do. The village had gradually gotten to love him, and see past the emotionless mask that he constantly had on. Their love and support of their Godaime Kazekage had grown, but now that he was gone, what would become the relationship between him and the village?

She didn't want to think about it; it didn't bode well for her and her thoughts would only grow darker if she kept mulling over the topic.

Finally, while looking down and away, she admitted to the group, "I had a bad feeling."

"It'll take three days to reach Suna from here. Let's hurry."

The Konoha group knew the anxiety and the anguish that she felt, even if they couldn't comprehend it fully. They didn't know Gaara; they didn't know the hardships that he went through to become the Kazekage; they didn't know what he meant to anyone he had met. They simply didn't know. They knew how she felt, but they didn't know the depth of it.

Quickly, she glanced at the newcomer of the group, and she saw eyes that matched the feelings that she held inside. He knew. He knew those feelings, and in some way, she knew the felt the same way she did when she heard about her brother's capture.

His eyes remained glued to her, and she merely looked back in response. Though his face was set into a grim smile that tried to reassure, she knew that that smile meant nothing because it was just a farce. His eyes were all that she needed to get the answers to the questions that she had.

Seeing the reassurance in those eyes, she stepped away from the group and indicated her agreement. "Okay."

As they took a step to leap away into the trees, she only hoped that she could get to her brother in time and that those understanding-filled eyes weren't really a trick of the mind to replace blank eyes.

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

A little bit less than two weeks. I thought that I could get this chapter out by Tuesday since that day is my usual finishing day, but since the last update was a little bit late, my schedule has been thrown off. So I decided that I would move the update to whenever I could finish this chapter, since I was hurrying to do so. I think that this chapter wasn't as good as the previous chapters, and I know that I've based a lot of stuff off of canon, but I'm adding my own twist to just about everything. Anything that is written has a twist, so just as a spoiler, I won't be doing the Sakura-Chiyo battle because that will go according to canon. That's all I can spoil for now.

There are a lot of little things that I've written in the past chapters that I've forgotten to take note of, like the cursed seal facility that I mentioned earlier. I forgot about it because I didn't go so much into but now that I did catch that little plot "hook", I plan to take good care of it until it comes up later on in the story. With all the little catches in the plotline, I've decided that I might make this story a bit longer than the intended 45 chapters. The 3-year travel itself is supposed to take 5 chapters, but with the way that I'm writing now, I expect that it might take much more than I want it to.

This chapter's POV include: Sakura, Kakashi, Jiraiya, and Temari. I've already decided on the plot for the next chapter, which you all can expect in two weeks, and as a teaser, I'll tell: Kakashi, Kankurou, Chiyo. It's only a 3 POV chapter, which I now decide will be an average. I don't want to do too many POV changes since it only gives me more headaches.

Okay, to the explanations now. Omens. Everyone knows, but I'll just say it again. In the Naruto manga, there just about always a cracked cup when something bad happens. Now Tsunade's omen isn't usually cracked cups (it's winning at gambling), though she did get one sometime during the manga (don't remember when, so don't ask). Kurenai's cup cracked (I'm not spoiling that part, and I haven't even decided the final verdict for that portion of the story). Temari's cup cracked, indicating Gaara's bad fortune. To explanation 2: rain. Rain in most manga/anime is usually equal to bad things happening, or at least melancholy. So it's no wonder why Sakura at the beginning is feeling melancholy and down; the cold that Naruto naturally exudes will be explained later but it's not the only reason why Sakura was feeling melancholy. Again, all this will be explained later.

I've noticed that plenty of people read this fanfiction, and I think it's great that the story has gotten so many hits and gotten onto so many alert lists, C2s, faves, but still… I NEED REVIEWS! As a little incentive, if more people review, I will write longer chapters, possibly as long as the ones of the previous version of this fanfiction. NEED REVIEWS!

If you have any questions or concerns that you need me to address immediately, just email me or send a review (which I really want by the way) and I'll try to respond as quick as I can. Just to let you know, I'll probably address all questions in my author's notes or in the story itself, so don't worry too much about some things.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me.

REVIEW!


	7. Hope Confused With Foresight

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter 5: Hope Confused With Foresight**

* * *

"We've been waiting. This way, hurry."

They arrived at the only entrance into Suna hurriedly and out of breath. Taking in the condition of the group, he knew that they couldn't do anyone any good until they rested up. The entire group had sprinted the whole time, resting only when members of the group just had to have rest, and even with the brief reststops, all of them were worn ragged.

Casually observing the outcast of their group, he almost directed a confused and slightly angry thought at Tsurugi. Tsurugi wasn't as winded as the rest of the group though the bishounen too was panting for breath. Just like everyone else, his clothes were dusty and dirty, but unlike the others, he still held a dignified air and a posture that shouldn't have been possible with average normal shinobi. But then, Tsurugi was hardly an average normal shinobi.

None of them said a word as they passed through the slit of a wall that surrounded the entire village protecting it from almost all and any attacks. This protection was said to be infallible and everyone thought that the tiny slit could be protected, so thus the protection of the village was truly infallible; yet all were proven wrong when Akatsuki breached the wall and captured Suna's very own Kazekage right under (or literally above) their noses.

As he surveyed the villagers for the effects of the Kazekage's capture, he promptly saw the fear and panic constant in their eyes; everywhere, Suna shinobi tensed at every little sound, their instincts and paranoia going haywire. The psychological effect of the Kazekage's capture affected the village as a whole, almost like Akatsuki had planned it this way. But he knew it was different.

He knew that Akatsuki's objective were the nine demons, the Bijuu, that were trapped inside human containers. Though he didn't know much about the demons themselves, he had heard rumors as he was going about his missions ever since he had first heard about the group from Jiraiya. There were rumors that several individuals were given by their respective village to pairs that wore straw hats and black cloaks adorned with red cloads.

Glancing at Tsurugi, once again, he saw Naruto standing where Tsurugi was, wearing the exact same clothes. Deep down, he wished that whatever he saw was real, that Tsurugi was really Naruto in disguise, but he would never admit it to anyone or to himself.

The hospital coming up in front of them, he realized that he had missed parts of the conversation and the highly condensed briefing.

"But the Kazekage was abducted," their guide said. "After that, Kankurou pursued them, but he got wounded."

Temari shouted out in surprise, "What? They got Kankurou too?"

Horrified shock. He knew that feeling very well. Living through and fighting in a war always brought about terrible tragedies, and often times, he wanted to wallow in his pains, to have an excuse to not do anything but just wallow in pains that left him feeling more hurt than when he started.

The guide nodded and continued, "Yes, and he was caught by the enemy's poison. And we have no way to neutralize it." He paused and looked down for a moment before returning his gaze to the only member of the family physically unharmed. "At this rate, he has half a day at the most."

Some took sharp intakes of breath; others hissed.

Her face set into a scowl, she grit her teeth together and cursed, "Shit."

Keeping up his emotionless façade, he caught the look of horrified and scared shock. This girl was about to lose both her brothers to a pair of S-rank nuke-nin, and she couldn't do anything about it because she had arrived too late and she wasn't strong enough to battle them. The possibility of loss weighed heavily on her mind as panic started creeping into her eyes.

"Let's hurry, Temari-san."

Temari looked back at the one that spoke, so did the others.

Sakura's eyes were hard and determined. Her stance was completely different from the unsure composure that she had during much of the time of their three day travel from Konoha. Maybe it was just when faced with a situation that she knew that she could handle that she could have such a determined demeanor, mused Kakashi. He wasn't one to argue.

The medic-nin declared, "I'll examine him."

Inwardly, he let himself have a sad smile. Sakura had grown up and he hadn't seen it happen. For the past three years, he had been constantly sent off mission after mission, the number of high ranking missions at a constant high. Ever since the Sand-Sound invasion, shinobi were constantly hired for high ranking missions, and because of the invasion itself, there were fewer number of shinobi that were available to take on those missions. He, like many others, had taken on many more missions to alleviate the total number of high ranking missions. Because of all the missions he had taken, he had rarely seen his former student though they did occasionally meet up at Ichiraku's for lunch.

Despite the chance to watch Sakura grow up, he sacrificed it since whenever they did meet up at Ichiraku's, they too were too tired or down to properly talk.

When they finally reached the hospital, their guide stopped to inform the others in the hospitals that he had brought help, letting the rest of the group head up to the medical room that Kankurou was staying in. None of them slowed down as they sighted Medical Treatment Room 3, but they had to stop.

Both Sakura and Temari turned the corner and headed into the room running. The rest just skid to a stop, content with watching at the door. The two threw their bags away, urgencry written plainly on their faces and insane worry on Temari's.

Someone in the room turned sharply, scanning the faces of the newcomers, stopping as she saw someone of the group in particular, and immediately whispered harshly, "The White Fang of Konoha!"

Kakashi's first thought was '_Eh?_' before that someone in the room jumped towards him.

_Thump!_

"Don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself, Chiyo-baasama?"

Those in the room stared at the interaction between the two. Chiyo's fist was stopped by a loosely open hand, and the old woman looked up at the face of the person who stopped her from attacking the Cyclops of the team. She squinted before widening, her fist retreating back to her side. Chiyo and Tsurugi apparently had a relationship before the current interaction.

No one expected the old woman to suddenly attack or to do anything but greet them cordially. The old woman surprised everyone by launching that unexpected hit, but the young man that had stopped the attack furthered their surprise and confusion.

"Tsurugi? What are doing here? Why are you protecting White Fang? You know what he did!"

Putting up his hands in supplication, Tsurugi tried to futilely sooth the Chiyo's anger. With a shaky smile, he asked, "Now, Chiyo-baasama, don't you think that Hatake-san looks different from his father?"

Chiyo, ignoring parts of Tsurugi's questions, glared at the group darkly and nearly snarled out, "I remember that name, that White Fang of Konoha! My son's enemy! I will get my revenge for him today!"

At that moment, Kakashi allowed himself a moment of panic. After all, it wasn't everyday that some random old woman claimed that he killed his son; this was an old woman; he wasn't one to actually attack the old hag, even though he suppressed the urge to do so. Holding out his hands in supplication like Tsurugi did, he tried to assuage the situation, "Ah! No, I'm not…"

"There's no use arguing!" Chiyo yelled threateningly.

A shifting from a person on the other side of the room redirected everyone's attention as the person moved in front of Chiyo, preventing the old woman from even starting her assault, surprising many including Chiyo herself. The old man raised a hand to emphasize his prevention of attack. "Sister, take a good look. There's a strong resemblance, but he isn't the White Fang of Konoha."

The gray-haired old woman looked at the other elder in the room in question, "Huh?" Not receiving an answer, she then peered at the target in question and cracked open the swollen eye, squinting with difficulty. For a moment, she said nothing, but she shouted out self-confidently, "No way! I was just pretending to be stupid! Gyahaha!"

No one said anything, but Kakashi still gave out a relieved "Whew."

"More importantly, Kankurou-san needs to be quickly treated!" Sakura shouted to everyone as she hurried over to the only unconscious body in the room, shoving people aside imperiously, and moving medical equipment around to her liking, all around taking charge of the situation.

Temari nodded and gave them a pleading look. "Please."

_Drip… _

_Drip…_

All around one side of the room, people just sat waiting for the only medic-nin capable of healing and curing a grievous wound that Kankurou to finish, none of them knowing exactly how long the process would take. Chiyo had taken to Sakura's side and assisted the young medic-nin with whatever needed to be done to heal the injured jounin, and Temari, being the closest of kin to the victim, remained right by Kankurou, though she wouldn't go through with holding his hand during the process.

Kakashi glanced around his side of the room, noting that most of their group was catching their breath and firm on recovering as much as energy possible for the fight they all knew was surely ahead. Gai and his team were sitting down and resting, all of them cautious of their surroundings and taking turns resting deeply. His eyes shifting to his defender, he immediately noticed that the raven-haired enigma closed his eyes and sat in a meditative position. Not that many shinobi meditate on a regular basis, and the ease the position gave Tsurugi only proved that he had meditated for a long time. The more time that he spent with the unique shinobi, the more he learned to expected the unexpected. Just the way that he used to do for someone a long time ago.

Moving his eyes away from the thought-provoking figure, he watched as Sakura's hands glowed green above the two slice wounds that were made on Kankurou's torso. With her right hand placed right on one wound, she pumped green healing chakra from one wound to isolate the poison in the jounin's system, and with her left hand hovering above the other, she extracted the poison, the green chakra as the connection between the open wound and the rest of the collected poison. Carefully, she kept extracting the poison, staying in the same position for the entire time, and finally, the poison extraction slowed until none came out.

She held up the entire bubbling orb of poision surrounded by healing chakra in one hand and declared, "Got it!"

The green chakra disappearing from her right hand, she quickly snatched a vial and meticulously filled the vial with the poison before capping it and reinforcing the cap with a sudden burst of chakra.

Her hand wiped off the sweat dripping down her face. "Heh…" she said to everyone in the room, "I don't think there's any need to worry about his life anymore. I've directly removed the poison."

Temari, on the side, had let go of Kankurou's hand to slide to the ground against the wall. Her hand against her chest in a way to calm down her pounding heart, she tilted her head back against the wall and gave out an extremely relieved "Whew…"

As soon as Sakura declared Kankurou safe from dying, the other members of the team had gotten to their feet and moved around to surround the table, all their attention towards Sakura even though they stared at the unconscious Kankurou.

Gesturing to Kankurou, Sakura continued on in her plans. "Now I have to make an antidote for the little bit of poison left in his body. We can't relax yet." She turned to Chiyo, the only person the medic-nin knew would be able to assist her. "Please gather what I say."

"Take all the time you need, Haruno-san."

Everyone's heads turned to Tsurugi, who once again stole away the spotlight from everyone. Stepping out of the circle everyone had formed around Kankurou, he moved around to the side of the bed to stand beside Sakura as he pulled up his sleeves and tied them out of the way. His hands, which were previously hidden in the vast enormity of his sleeves, were still completely covered with bandages but oddly enough were illuminated by a green chakra with blue tints.

He concentrated on Sakura's confused and slightly distrustful expression after gazing for quite a while at Kankurou. "I will extract the rest of the poison."

Only the shinobi from Konoha stared stunned at the kimono-wearing jounin. Seeing Gai frown lightly, Kakashi fought to keep his face aloof; he too was asking the same questions Gai seemed to be asking in his mind. A seal master doing the work of a medic-nin? It was highly irregular; from their knowledge of the training of seal masters, nowhere in the training requirements or curriculum was there anything about healing or poison extraction. So for a seal master offering services in extracting a poison which should have been impossible without medic-nin training was inconceivable to the two elite jounin. Even they as elite jounin did not have the detailed knowledge of how to delicately extract poison left in the body after the initial extraction.

Sakura, who knew exactly what the elite jounin knew, at once protested, "But you're a seal master! You don't know how to—"

Tsurugi interrupted her with a gentle smile on his face. "I'll be performing a chakra explosion purification."

Those who knew exactly what a chakra explosion purification was sucked in their breath sharply, holding it in, but not everyone knew what it was. Apparently, the people that did not know were several Suna shinobi and Team Gai sans Gai.

Kakashi had tried to keep his face looking detached, but the knowledge that Tsurugi, a boy that he had only meet several days ago, knew such dangerous technique and was willing to use it so freely made it difficult for him to keep all emotions off his face. Not many people knew about the technique despite the greater number people in the room that did know.

The technique called for chakra that reached from the simple physical energy into the complicated life energy, life chakra, which sustained life in each person. People that used the technique may survive the process but won't have too much longer to live, probably a year or two at the most; so thus the technique was only used for a live-or-die situation. Kakashi mentally frowned as he dug through his memory and found the little tidbit that most people that did know about the technique did not know: only trained monks and special daimyo guards were taught the technique.

A chakra explosion purification in the past has only been used on daimyo of countries or very important individuals by the guards and the monks respectively, and it has only been used when the daimyo or the protected were in danger of dying and nothing else could be done for them. To die because of the purification to save the life of the protected was usually expected, but it was an honor because the inevitable death was honorable.

From conversations with daimyo guards he had worked with, Kakashi had learned that the purification was designed to not at all harm the patient, but everything depended on the chakra control of the wielder. Just one slight fluctuation in chakra control could bring about the death of the wielder and the death of another since someone had to perform the technique, he was told.

As soon as those that knew about the purification understood the consequences of exactly what Tsurugi was going to do, their faces must have appeared worried since Tsurugi gave a brighter smile and reassured them. "I've done this plenty of times, and I haven't died yet, so please don't worry about me."

His words weren't reassuring. The boy had done the purification more than once? And he still had enough chakra to effectively hold off an elite jounin in a spar? From the rumors he heard from those conversations with the daimyo guards, Kakashi found out during the period after the purification but before death set it, the wielder's body functions would slowly shut down, starting with the workable chakra. It was unbelievable that Tsurugi's chakra system was still working even now if his claims of performing the technique more than once were true.

His left hand, bandaged entirely down to the fingertips, glowing green with blue tints, reached out to Sakura, who held the vial close. Her eyes flicked from the raven-haired boy's face down to his glowing hand, and she hesitated.

Tsurugi, who apparently caught her hesitation, told her, "I just need you to keep the poison exposed for me to sense with chakra."

Still hesitating but willing, Sakura reopened the vial, her other hand once again covered with healing chakra, and poured a small amount of the poison onto her hand. The poison came together into a ball, hovering above her palm.

Sitting down on the edge of the examination table that Kankurou lay on, Tsurugi hovered his hand above the poison. Sakura's hand was shaking lightly, but she did not pull back or flinch as his hand hovered over hers.

With his left hand hovering above the poison and exposing his chakra and mind to the specifications of the poison, he placed his other hand on Kankurou's bare chest, the hand glowing the same as the other, and closed his eyes. A minute or so passed as nothing happened, but as soon as someone wanted to start to say something, Tsurugi took in a deep lifting breath and flicking his eyes back open.

Those that were more attuned to chakra in the room fought the urge to hiss as a large amount of chakra near Tsurugi shifted. The feeling wasn't a good feeling but it wasn't a bad one either. The feeling was just… uncomfortable.

"HA!"

The moment that Tsurugi gave his shout, the chakra that had been shifting around focused into his right hand and literally exploded as it subtly yet forcefully moved from the right hand spreading into and through Kankurou's entire body. Everyone felt the explosion of chakra and immediately shuddered; the chakra amount and its effect on everyone in the room was enough to cause anyone near believe that the technique was a mass-destruction jutsu.

Right before their eyes, Kankurou started shuddering and the Suna shinobi were about to protest and start a fight in case something fatal had truly happened to the brother of the Kazekage. But Kankurou arched up and coughed horribly. They blinked unbelievingly as a small blob flew out out of Kankurou's mouth as he coughed. As soon as it flew out, Tsurugi caught it with his right hand, the hand that had been placed on Kankurou's chest, and dumped it with the rest of the poison hovering above Sakura's palm as he moved his left hand away from Sakura's.

Still sitting beside the body on the table, he untied the straps that were holding up his sleeves and reached into his sleeves. He pulled out an ink well and a brush. Setting the inkwell down on the table, he turned to Sakura and Chiyo and told them specifically, "I will finish up here. You two go make that antidote. I have to put a seal on Kankurou-san to finish up the purification."

Temari frowned and spoke up, "It's a purification; he's supposed to be purged of the poison."

Inwardly, Kakashi agreed with Temari. He had never heard anything about finishing up the purification once it was done, but then again, none of the guards he had talked with were too willing to go into the actual purification. They only talked about why and the effects of the purification on themselves, not on the patient.

Tsurugi nodded. "The seal inject an altered form of the antidote into the bloodstream so it will remain in his body forever. Though it won't negate the poison itself, the seal will aid the altered antidote in isolating the poison to the wound from which it entered for a medic-nin to more easily extract."

The blonde bit her lip and seemed to want to retort. From the looks of it, she couldn't find the exact words to use in argument.

The boy had a good seal to use them in case of any future exposure to the poison. Kakashi thought that just maybe… this boy may be a good—no, a life-saver for the team against the members of Akatsuki they were surely going to face.

"But the seal will only work on someone who's been exposed to the poison before."

Okay… maybe not a life-saver.

* * *

Something cold and wet was moving across his skin, and shivers went up his spine as he slowly came to. The trail that the thing left was cold as the air hit it, and it roused him into consciousness even further. The world was dark but he could make out the presence of many people around him. Many of the chakra signatures in the room he could recognize but there was one that seemed familiar and almost family but the identity eluded him, which in turn confused him as well.

Focusing his attention to his eyes, he forced them open slowly, but the light was too blinding. As soon as the blinding light hit his eyes, he flinched before squinting. After a while, his eyes were getting accustomed to the light, and the feeling of something cold and wet was reinforced as it kept moving along his chest, he soon realized.

Blinking helped clear away the blurriness and as soon as he could see that he was inside a hospital room, he craned his neck to see what was cold and wet and moving on his chest since the rest of his body apparently wasn't complying with what he wanted.

"_BLOODY MURDER!_"

The long-haired person drawing a seal on his skin looked up, not startled at all. Since the person had long hair and at first glance was slim and not at all thick in figure, he concluded that the person was a female, but as soon as he saw his attendant's face, he blushed lightly in embarrassment. He should have known better than to assume long hair and a slim figure meant a woman, but how often did he see a pretty man?

The young man looked at Kankurou and sighed, stopping what he was doing. With the brush still in his hands, he waited for Kankurou to say something.

"What the hell do you think you're doing to me?" Kankurou bellowed, shaken a bit. It wasn't everyday that he woke up to a person putting a seal on him. The last thing he had remembered was… _that man_ taking Gaara away. Gaara unconscious, and they still took his brother away. And he couldn't do a single goddamn thing to stop them.

His attendant blinked and dipped the brush into a inkwell beside him on the table. As he started drawing out the seal again, the raven-haired boy explained, "You were poisoned. Our medic-nin extracted the poison and is right now making the antidote for you to drink, even though you're clear from dying. I'm giving you a seal that aids the body in isolating the poison long enough for a medic-nin to extract."

Kankurou blinked at the explanation. As a jounin, he was able to catch onto things in words said that normal people wouldn't notice, and the moment his attendant finished his spiel on what happened, he noted that several points in the explanation were left out and didn't add up. But he noticed the hitai-ate on the forehead: Konoha.

Though he knew that a nuke-nin could put on a Konoha hitai-ate and trick him into something, there was a feeling he got from this person. He felt that this person meant no harm, that he could trust this person. He recognized this person's chakra signature as the one that felt familiar and almost family; but every time he tried to put the face to the chakra signature, he kept coming up with a blank. Deep down, he felt and knew that the person's appearance wasn't his true appearance.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly.

The attendant, this time, didn't look up at all. "Tsurugi Tenkou, seal master of Konoha."

Setting his head down on the table, Kankurou let Tsurugi continued his work. Even though the ink on his skin made him shiver from the cold, he found the constant feel of the brush moving across his skin soothing. Unconsciously, he started letting his mind drift away but kept his senses aware of everything happening in the room.

"Excuse me, there is something I would like to ask. What came of the pursuit of Akatsuki after that?"

A voice answered, Baki he thought, "Kankurou went alone after them. There were no others."

The same person that asked the first question then asked in response, "Then have we completely lost them?"

"Yes, we have." His old jounin sensei sounded upset and disappointed, not at anyone else, but he was upset, disappointed at himself.

"Hmm… Well, could you please guide me to where Kankurou-kun was fighting? Though I may not seem it, I am an expert of pursuit… even if a small amount of their scent is left behind…"

Kankurou wanted to speak, to say something, to have his input into the conversation, but his body was in so much pain. The constant feel of brush of skin was soothing and lured him into oblivion, but he knew that whatever he could say, he needed to say.

The brush stopped moving, and he knew Tsurugi wanted him to speak whatever he knew about Akatsuki and the pair that attacked his little brother. Complying with his and Tsurugi's wishes, he slowly sat up and grunted out, "That's not necessary."

With Tsurugi helping him sit up, he bit his lip trying not to scream from the pain in his muscles. He was a shinobi of Suna; he should be above biting his lip trying not to scream. He should be able to endure it and talk, and he certainly shouldn't have let Tsurugi help him sit up. In a way, it was all a blow to his pride.

Ignoring his inner rant about his pride, he informed everyone what he had learned about Akatsuki. "There are two enemies. One abducted Gaara. You should follow Gaara's scent." Scowling as another wave of pain crashed upon him, he bit out in a strained voice, "Even assuming they split up, the other caught a bit of his clothing on Karasu's hand."

"Making a success out of a failure… you are indeed a shinobi of Suna."

Kankurou looked to the voice and realized that the person that had asked those questions and had spoken as he was falling back into a lull had been Hatake Kakashi. The statements that Hatake had said now made sense; those statements had confused him for a while since he couldn't put a face or name with the voice.

Temari, who apparently had fallen asleep on the floor beside his bed, had woken up and made for his bedside. The bags under her eyes were clearly from the stress of not knowing whether he would live or die and what befell their little brother. Her stance conveyed her fatigue, and he knew without a doubt that she had traveled from Konoha with few to no breaks for three straight days. She asked worriedly as she saw that he was sitting up despite the pain he was in, "Kankurou, are you okay?"

Looking at her, he wanted to tell her the truth and tell her that he felt like shit, but she was the oldest. She was the one that had looked out for both he and Gaara when they were younger, and so she knew them in ways that no one else could ever know them. In a way, the truth would hurt as much as lying would, so either way, he was damned. Just to keep appearances up, he answered, "Yeah… I'm feeling a bit better now…"

A raspy voice from his right asked slowly, "Kankurou-san… Are you absolutely sure that one of the two was Sasori?"

He turned towards the voice. "Chiyo-baasama and Ebizou-jiisama?" It was really surprising to see the two elders away from their everyday routine; nowadays, they had no desire to meddle in the affairs of the outside world, the outside world referring to anything that didn't include either of the two and fishing. Because they didn't immerse themselves in the affairs of the ninja society anymore, rarely anyone went to ask them for their opinion or advice. So to see them away from their fishing was rare.

"What about that… Kankurou?" reminded Ebizou.

With his eyes still on the two legendary sibling shinobi, he hesitated before answering, "Yeah… It was Akasuna no Sasori. He said it himself."

Looking at the two elders that had the respect of the entire village before Gaara, he, or Temari were born, he noted Chiyo-baasama's slightly drooping head. Her eyes were downcast, remembering a time too painful. He hadn't wanted to confirm to Chiyo-baasama that it was indeed Sasori. Despite all the bad Sasori had done in the world, Chiyo could never truly and deep down fault him in all his actions; that was something that Kankurou could not understand; maybe it was just a female thing.

"Akasuna no Sasori, ka? Please tell us more about the Akatsuki," Kakashi asked.

"Did the other one use explosives?"

Everyone turned to look at Tsurugi as he continued his work on Kankurou's chest. Kankurou hadn't even noticed when Tsurugi had restarted the seal as he talked to Chiyo and the rest of the group, and he inwardly cursed himself for not being so attentive. But then, Tsurugi was very good at surprising people and being unexpected.

Finally remembering that the other had asked a question, Kankurou watched Tsurugi's face for a sign of anything, but Tsurugi's face was a like a solid wall. Mentally sighing, he gave a tentative nod.

Tsurugi looked away from Kankurou's face to stare at the seal that he worked on. "I thought so." He paused and everyone waited for a reason for his question. "I've been doing my own research on Akatsuki, and I've been able to garner who works with whom and their names in Akatsuki."

People in the room stared at the seal master in surprise; Kankurou sure did. From the information Gaara had given him, he knew that Akatsuki worked in pairs but no one knew exactly who was in Akatsuki except for Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigake Kisame. He also learned that Akatsuki's targets were the jinchuuriki, the vessels of the Bijuu, and there were several incidents in other countries where some hidden villages just gave up their jinchuuriki without a fuss or fight. It vexed him that none of them would stand up for one of their own, but he knew he was a hypocrite. Not too long ago, he had done the same to blood kin, Gaara.

"The one with explosives is a nuke-nin named Deidara from Iwagakure no Sato. He mainly uses explosives made from a special clay that he carries with him. His partner is Akasuna no Sasori." Tsurugi stopped and looked over the Suna shinobi in the room, staring pointedly at Chiyo. "And I'm sure that you know more about Akasuna no Sasori than I do."

In that instance, Kankurou shivered. The cold. This was Suna! It wasn't supposed to be cold in the middle of the goddamn desert! Moving one hand to hold the other arm, he realized his skin wasn't cold, the room wasn't cold, nothing around him was cold. The cold had seeped into his bones so quickly that it shocked him, and he spun his head towards the young man that was still drawing a seal on his chest. Tsurugi had stopped talking and went back to his work with the seal.

His eyes observing everyone in the room, Kankurou frowned as he saw only several people shiver in reaction like he did and look with realization at Tsurugi. Something about Tsurugi was cold, not literally cold or figuratively cold, but something cold. Tsurugi exuded the cold, and no one would or could notice it until something sparked and set Tsurugi's emotions afire. He didn't know if Tsurugi's emotions were really moving or if they shifted and not in control.

He never wanted to feel that cold ever again.

* * *

The boy hadn't been as quiet or aloof when he was in Suna a few months ago. There was always a smile on his face and all anyone could hear from him were pealing laughs that made everyone smile and feel lighter. He wasn't ever like this a few months ago; he certainly changed once he went back to Konoha.

She didn't even know his real name, but everyone outside of Konoha knew the name of Tsurugi Tenkou. Secretly, she wondered how no one in Konoha knew about Tsurugi, but she attributed it to the fact that Jiraiya had somehow stopped the news from reaching the village.

That was how she met the boy. Jiraiya had introduced her to the boy two years ago; even though she absolutely despised the Sannin's teammate, he couldn't begrudge the old fart her 'friendship', if she wanted to call it that. Jiraiya had, one day, brought him to her and asked her to help the boy with a seal that he was creating. Then the old fart had upped and left her with the insufferable brat that smiled like there was no tomorrow.

When the fart left, she immediately started ignoring the boy, but the boy was persistent. Wherever she went, he was there asking and point out things on a scroll; she had even gone out of her away to avoid her usual fishing with her brother just to avoid the unavoidable brat.

The one thing that she was eternally grateful for during that time of great crisis was the arrival of the Kazekage. She never knew how the brat was friends with the Kazekage, but she often suspected that the brat was the one to change the Kazekaze during the Suna-Oto invasion on Konoha. The Kazekage would often come at the most opportune times and drag the smiling brat away for sparring or ramen. There were two things that she absolutely hated about the boy though: he was a genius at sealing, and he idolized ramen like a god.

The ramen part she could ignore, but the genius at sealing she just couldn't. As a puppet master, she had a affinity with sealing and anything that needed the subtle and delicate use of chakra; in her own way, she could also be considered a genius at sealing. But compared to the sealing skill that the brat showed, she was just a mere dilettante. And that frustrated her; to be shown up by a pretentious upstart was irritating, but to truthfully be shown up was beyond humiliating. The skill that he had whenever he performed a sealing always amazed her during the sealing itself, but afterward, she cursed herself for being amazed and angrily wondered why wasn't able to show that level of skill.

Tsurugi had already been a genius at sealing, so when Jiraiya explained why he wanted her to help the brat, she reluctantly agreed since she had no idea how much her newest trainee knew about sealing. When the brat had started asking her questions and her advice, she looked at the seal that he wanted her to help with once and never again. She had never seen that complex and complicated of a seal, and she suddenly understood why the old frog fart had dumped the brat on her. Jiraiya didn't have the skill to help, so he turned to someone that he thought may have the skill. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

It was because the old frog had dumped a sealing genius on her without explaining and because the brat _was_ a sealing genius that she avoided the boy at all costs just so she could avoid the humiliating experience of admitting that some unknown upstart was better at the shinobi art than her. She avoided the brat for weeks.

One night, she came back from a brat-free fishing day to a brat slumped over the table, papers and scrolls around him, asleep. The brat really was serious about the seal that he wanted her to help with. She peered over the papers and immediately spotted a weak area of the seal. Grabbing an inkbrush, she circled the area and wrote a few notes, fixing up the seal. She placed a blanket around the brat's shoulders before retiring. That night, she felt like maybe geniuses weren't the best at their thing as most people suspected.

"Stop."

The group did stop, looking at Tsurugi in surprise. Kakashi had been leading the entire group, most of them looking out at their surroundings for ambushes. Tsurugi on the other hand had been studying a scroll as they had been traveling, much to the annoyance of all the other members of the group. When he said "Stop", everyone stopped to look at Tsurugi in surprise. Since he had been studying a scroll most of the time, none of them expected that he would also be paying much attention to his surroundings, but apparently, he sensed more than they did.

"We are being followed."

Without any warning or need for an order, the white-eyed kid did something that made the veins around his eyes pulse. He said, "They're not too far but they'll reach us soon."

Fixing her eyes on both Tsurugi and Kakashi, she watched as Tsurugi gave Kakashi a look. Kakashi frowned behind his mask and told them, "We'll have to split up." He turned to Gai and told him, "Gai, take your team, and I'll take Sakura, Tsurugi, and Chiyo." Forming seals with his hands, he slammed his right hand down on the ground as kanji sprang up in a circle around his hand. With a _POOF!_, a small dog appeared that raised its paw and greeted everyone with a "Yo." Kakashi then said, "Pakkun will lead you."

The man that she dubbed green freak nodded and gestured to his team to move away from the rest of the group. Pakkun, as soon as he got a whiff of what he was scenting, nodded to Kakashi before jumping off and leading Gai's team towards their mutual destination.

Without another word, they left, Kakashi leading them and taking them in a different direction but still following the general scent trail that the Akatsuki left behind. Both she and that other girl took up observing the surroundings while Tsurugi went back to his scroll.

In a way, Tsurugi's carelessness annoyed her. His senses and his observational skills were above hers even while he was studying a scroll as avidly as he was at the moment. His training she had learned of from Jiraiya had taught him how to multitask spectacularly, and she envied his skills. The brat did the same thing every single day when he was in Suna a few months ago. He would be practicing his taijutsu forms in a sandy training area, and at the same time, he would be tracing a complex seal on the sand with his feet movements.

Abruptly, Tsurugi rolled up his scroll and secreted it away inside his right kimono sleeve. They looked at Tsurugi in surprise since even when they had stopped to split the group up, Tsurugi hadn't put away his scroll.

As they neared the ground leaving the forest cover, Kakashi yelled, "Everybody, halt!"

Chiyo passively stared at the figure before them. She hadn't ever faced him or seen him. But she certainly knew what he looked like and what his name was. He after all was probably the most famous Akatsuki member.

Beside her, the pink-haired girl frowned and furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Obviously, her teacher hadn't given her a crash course of the nuke-nin of Konoha or the most powerful shinobi in the shinobi countries. Quietly, she asked, "Who?"

"Well, this is sudden…" Kakashi murmured, his eyes only on the person before them.

Squinting, she wanted to see. To see the most famous eyes of Konoha. "Those eyes." There wasn't a single shinobi in the world that couldn't recognize those distinguishable eyes. After all, there were only two left in the world.

To Kakashi, Sakura, and her surprise, Tsurugi gave the most unusual and shocking response to the appearance of the figure before them. "Ohayo, Uchiha Itachi-kun."

* * *

_To be continued…_

**Author's Notes:**

YAY! I've finally finished this chapter. This chapter was really hard to finish since I had to keep on referring back to canon; I skipped so much in canon that I'm like… how did this thing move so fast? I'm just 5 chapters into the story and BOOM! Itachi. My favorite character in all of Naruto save the Yondaime, who is dead unfortunately. Anyway, I put in parts of Naruto's past, just a bit of history that happened a few months ago from the current time. I had a lot more written in this chapter, but I had to cut out a paragraph or two because it didn't fit in with the rest of the chapter and didn't feel right with the rest of the plot so I decided to forgo that idea and just move on. I hope that you liked Chiyo's characterization during her POV; halfway through the chapter, I was seriously thinking of breaking my promise to everyone and changing the POVs but I had to press through. So the chapter is only Kakashi, Kankurou, and Chiyo's POV. Next chapter, I'm still wondering whether I should use Itachi's POV. I would love to do it but I'm not sure since canon doesn't really go into Itachi's thoughts as much as the other characters so I'm not sure how I should proceed.

I'm sorry that I didn't have this thing up several weeks ago. I finished the last Harry Potter book in almost exactly 6 hours, so ever since then, I was raving whether or not I should start another fanfiction on Harry Potter since I have this great idea, but I decided that once I'm more than half way through the fanfiction will I start the HP fanfiction, so don't worry about that. But since I was so distracted these past few weeks, I haven't had the time to work and finish this chapter. Now that I have finished, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the next chapter, but rest assured. It will come in time and soon.

A lot of people have been asking me when I'm going to reveal to everyone that Tsurugi is really Naruto. I've finally decided that I will reveal it when . That is all I'm willing to tell, so you're going to have to wait, but I can warn you that it's going to be within the next two to three chapters.

I shouldn't make a too long AN so I'm not and I'll leave you here. Wait for my next update!

If you have any questions or concerns that you need me to address immediately, just email me or send a review (which I really want by the way) and I'll try to respond as quick as I can. Just to let you know, I'll probably address all questions in my author's notes or in the story itself, so don't worry too much about some things.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me. Please send me an example of your work.

REVIEW!


	8. Confrontations Following Reunion

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have past since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter 6: Confrontation Following Reunion**

* * *

He didn't expect to see Tsurugi Tenkou so soon after their last meeting. Merely remembering their last confrontation caused his collarbone to throb, and he briefly wondered if Tsurugi still ached from his hit to the solar plexus. All of their meetings together ended in pain for both of them.

Controlling his face, he casually replied, "Hishashiburi, Tenkou-kun."

Tsurugi was smiling, the calm smiling façade he always wore when they met. Nothing ever changed that expression on that face; Tsurugi wore that expression, even as his own fist smashed his face. For the smallest moment, he could believe that Tsurugi was truly the insane mass-murdering shinobi that everyone called him. Ironic.

Judging by the looks that Tsurugi was receiving from the other members of his team, none of the Konoha ninja knew about the long-haired boy's reputation, and he inwardly acknowledged Tsurugi's skill in keeping Konoha and the rest of Fire Country from knowing about his identity. But how much longer could Tsurugi keep it secret from them?

The old hag glanced at Tsurugi with mild confusion but subtly relented with a silent demand for answers. Narrowing his eyes somewhat, he noted that she wasn't from Konoha, meaning she came from Suna, and he immediately concluded that she was the grandmother of his fellow Akatsuki associate, Akasuna no Sasori. She would be a hassle to deal with if she joined the fight against him. With Tsurugi, Hatake, and—what was her name? Chiyo?—against him, he wouldn't last too long.

"How are you, Itachi-kun?" Tsurugi asked, tactfully moving his body in front of the rest of the group.

Unwittingly, an eyebrow twitched in amusement. Tsurugi clearly didn't want to involve the others of his group in their spat, but that didn't really matter.

Ignoring Tsurugi's question, he asked in kind, "Where is Uzumaki Naruto?"

Tsurugi's companions looked at his opponent in shocked confusion. Schooling his face, he succeeded in keeping a smirk from his lips. So, Tsurugi hadn't told anyone anything about his connection to his target, but more likely, Tsurugi had only told two people, the Hokage and Jiraiya, and they deemed that it was too dangerous for anyone save those aforementioned three to know the whereabouts of Uzumaki Naruto.

That was how Itachi met Tsurugi. Between him and Kisame, they had been tracking down the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki when Uzumaki Naruto literally disappeared off the face of the earth a week after he and Jiraiya left Konoha for the three-year training trip, and up popped, in his place, Tsurugi Tenkou, an unknown shinobi with no origins and no past. Absolutely no one knew where Uzumaki Naruto disappeared to, and no one knew where Tsurugi Tenkou came from.

The pair had immediately assumed that Tsurugi Tenkou was in truth Uzumaki Naruto, the one and the same. But the moment they confronted Tsurugi, they were forced to realize that Tsurugi Tenkou was never Uzumaki Naruto and that Uzumaki Naruto could never be Tsurugi Tenkou. Even with months of practice, which was exactly how much time they had noted between Uzumaki Naruto's disappearance and Tsurugi Tenkou's appearance, there was no comprehensible way that a shinobi's style of fighting could, down to the basic katas and footwork, change so dramatically and drastically. As said, there was no way that Uzumaki Naruto could have changed his entire fighting style to fight on par with him, Uchiha Itachi.

Tsurugi's answer was "He's not here, Itachi-kun."

No matter in what manner he appeared in front of this young man, he had never been able to receive a straight answer. All the words came from Tsurugi's mouth directed towards him were all convoluted and half-truths. There was never a straight truthful answer, but that didn't really matter at all. He longer confronted Tsurugi for the truth, something he realized two years into their continual fighting. To Tsurugi, truth never existed. Those were Tsurugi's exact words.

Still, after so many years, he had asked the same question, and Tsurugi gave the same answer, though it was phrased differently every time. Then, there would be no more words between them.

Low murmurs emanating from Tsurugi drifted lightly across the space between them, but he could still make out the conversation.

"Hatake-san, Haruno-san, Chiyo-baasan, please close your eyes."

"What about you?" asked Hatake, while looking at him and especially not looking into his eyes.

"I will be fighting Itachi-kun, but I do not want you getting trapped a genjutsu if you accidentally look into his eyes while I am fighting."

"You're fighting him alone?" the pink-haired girl asked with a look of incredulity.

Tsurugi, not facing them, nodded. To keep his muscles tense and chakra consistently moving, Tsurugi shifted himself to align himself with the opponent across the field. "I know Itachi-kun's fighting style. Even if I were to fall in this fight, I hope that my loss will not affect the outcome of our mission."

Hatake visibly frowned but offered no other emotion on his face for anyone to decipher his inner thoughts. After giving Tsurugi a long searching gaze, a tension in Hatake's shoulders relented. "You are a jounin, and you know your limits."

Itachi almost smirked in amusement. Konoha ninja; most of their attitudes were upbeat and optimistic, and most had never seen the worst of battles. He knew that Hatake had; Hatake, after all, had been through the Third Great Shinobi War, even though the older man had only seen the last of that war. The mentality that wars forced on people was all the same, and that mentality caused Hatake to say those words to Tsurugi.

In response to the unspoken questions and the acknowledgement, his opponent nodded, eyes never leaving him for a moment. The three other shinobi stepped back, all of them looking anxiously between the two.

_FWOOSH…_

Dodging the open hand strike aimed to the left shoulder, then the one to the right shoulders, he was forced to keep evading, all of Tsurugi's strikes restraining him from moving from the defensive to the offensive. The well-aimed strikes kept coming, and he had to rely on his instincts because Tsurugi's hits were too fast for his Sharingan to accurately predict the movement.

He ducked as Tsurugi aimed a double-handed strike and crouched, swinging his body into a full-out body sweep. The sweep worked, but Tsurugi bent back and used the downward momentum to twist his body to kick the other's side as Itachi's body moved away from the completion of the body sweep.

Noting the kick, he let his hands slid against the ground, moving away from Tsurugi and gaining distance between them, his momentum pushing him away from the tremendous impact that Tsurugi's feet would have made with his body. With wary eyes, he watched as Tsurugi's feet indeed collided with the ground and created a small crater. From experience, he knew that Tsurugi's limbs were like mountains; the fact that the two-foot downward kick had only created a small crater reinforced his small aggravation of Tsurugi not fighting at his fullest. But then, who was he to complain?

Again, Tsurugi was in his face. Right hand, left kick, left hand, right kick, step back, step forward, left foot, step back, right hand. And the fight kept on going. He had to pay close attention to the vibrations in the air in order to actually know what the next move on his opponent's part would be; there were no bodily ways that he could predict Tsurugi's motions. He barely had time to prepare an adequate defense in retaliation to the attacks.

Out of nowhere, Tsurugi's leg shot out and nailed him in the gut, the force pushing him back and away. His hand immediately went to his stomach even though he knew that it did him no good. He then thanked his last minute body adjustment that saved his life. If he hadn't moved at the last second, he would have turned around to see his stomach there.

Buddha no Zen'in was truly a formidable taijutsu style. Compared to most taijutsu styles, Buddha no Zen'in required little to no chakra expenditures, and in that aspect, it was similar to the Goken style. Otherwise, there are no equals to this style. He wasn't too sure about the method of training, but he assumed to truly use the style to its fullest potential, Tsurugi had to have extensively enhanced his strength. The strength of one hit, even by a singular kick, was enough to push a human heart out of someone's chest without any damage to the place of impact.

The small crater that Tsurugi had made earlier was a testament to the strength of Buddha no Zen'in. Glancing a moment to the pink-haired girl of the retrieval group, he noted the gloves and concluded that she was probably that apprentice Tsunade picked up. Quickly drawing a comparison between Tsurugi's strength and the strength that this girl had surely received from her master, he concluded that Tsurugi had the advantage though it was only slight. But honestly, he admitted he couldn't truly compare the two methods of gaining the type of strength that Tsunade had.

Tsunade's strength was not based on chakra, though many thought it was. Tsunade's strength was an inherited trait, something that came about physically without any help of chakra, something that was not a chakra-aided strength. The girl's strength, on the other hand, was completely and totally aided by chakra. Tsurugi and Tsunade's strength were more alike that he would have wanted, but he would have had it no other way.

Feeling blood well up from inside his throat, he forced it back down. He would not let Tsurugi have the pleasure of knowing that first blood was his. He removed his hand from his stomach as soon as he was sure that he could stand upright without hunching over in pain. Putting slight pressure on the area and realizing that it was fine though very sore, he shifted his stance to adequately fend off Tsurugi's attacks.

_FWOOSH!_

Eyes widening just the slightest, he inwardly cursed the men that gave his opponent the speed and power to effectively injure him. Tsurugi pulled one arm back to give a powerful clenched blow, but his hand shot out, grabbing the offending limb with more strength than necessary but still effectively immobilizing the limb.

Tsurugi still smiled. Never once in the fight did Tsurugi not smile. That smile annoyed him. Rolling his fingers before clenching his hand in a fist, he pulled his arm back and sent a chakra-enhanced blow at Tsurugi's face. Though he normally didn't charge his hits with chakra, doing so would better his odds and besides, all is fair in love and war.

The blow didn't connect however. Tsurugi ducked, to his irritation, and pulling his hand free, twisted his hands and arms in a well-known open double-handed strike to his chest.

Little time to prepare a stable defense, he had to resort to blocking the strike with both arms before flying off in the direction of Tsurugi's attack.

_CRACK!_

Biting the insides of his mouth, he could feel and taste more blood welling from his insides. The pain was nothing he hadn't dealt with before, but Tsurugi's hands had the strength of mountains. That loud _crack_he knew was the sound of his bones braking and shattering into thousands of pieces. He let his arms hang free at his sides; his arms were no use at this point.

From the very beginning, he had been on the losing side. Out of all the shinobi arts, Tsurugi truly excelled in taijutsu even though, from what was known about the shinobi, he only knew the Buddha no Zen'in. The Buddha no Zen'in truly was a formidable style, but those that learned the style rarely used it and when they did, they didn't show a great proficiency or mastery of the style. In Tsurugi's hands, the style flourished and became what it was truly designed to be: a monstrously strong, bloody, feral art.

The first time they had fought, Tsurugi had engaged him in solely taijutsu, which surprised him. Traveling and training with Jiraiya the Sennin automatically led him to believe that the long-haired boy engaged more in ninjutsu since the Sennin specialized in ninjutsu, but Tsurugi pulled out Buddha no Zen'in and effectively fought on par with him. For someone to fight on par with him in merely taijutsu, he had no choice but to acknowledge Tsurugi's abilities. Back then, he had no idea that Tsurugi had held back; both of them were shinobi. Why did they not resort to other shinobi arts?

He often asked himself that question once he and Tsurugi parted ways; yet every single confrontation between the two, they never got past only using one shinobi art. This time, it was taijutsu, similarly to their first meeting; if he had the first to attack, it would have been genjutsu. From past experiences and past fights, Tsurugi had floundered when he was attacked with genjutsu. He had no idea why since the boy had an excellent control over his chakra, but nevertheless, Tsurugi never fought back well when confronted with genjutsu.

It was an unspoken rule between them that they would not resort to other shinobi arts other than the one used in the first attack by either side. He doubted that Tsurugi even knew why they did such.

"Pay attention, Itachi-kun."

Immediately, he retaliated with a kick. His instincts reacted though his reaction time was so much slower than what it normally was. Tsurugi blocked the kick, but the boy was already in the final stance of a kata. There was no way that he could get out of this one.

He smirked as a warm feeling seeped out of the corners of his lips.

* * *

Kakashi looked down expressionlessly, Chiyo doing the same right beside him. The scene was relatively clean except for the limited area of combat. The area of most damage was where the corpse lay. With his eye still firmly planted on the corpse in front of him, he watched Tsurugi's actions.

Tsurugi stood a little distance off away from the rest of the group, and with his back turned away, he couldn't decipher the emotions or thoughts running through the young boy's mind. Certainly, the boy had killed before, right? He could never be too sure with the abundance of young prodigies nowadays. The skill that Tsurugi had displayed against his opponent spoke of countless battles and confrontations, but he wondered just how far the enemies pushed Tsurugi. Push Tsurugi far enough and he might push back, but Tsurugi's tolerance was extraordinary.

The boy stood away absolutely still, the breeze flapping his clothes and his hair. Not a breath or a twitch of a muscle escaped Tsurugi's stillness. If he didn't know that Tsurugi was a living human, he would have mistaken the boy for a statue or illusion designed to throw him off kilter. The absolute stillness seemed to be a way for Tsurugi to deal with the death of his opponent apparently, and even the violently strong muscles wrapped by bandages paid homage to the dead.

Returning his full attention to the corpse laying on the ground and sprawled out in front of them, he mentally sent a prayer asking for the forgiveness of the soul sent to the gods. Even though this man had been tricked and died not a man, he deserved some sort of honor or redemption for staying loyal.

Quietly, he said to no one in particular but directed the statement towards Chiyo, standing beside him. "We need to move."

Chiyo nodded. Her face was blanker than usual though her lips curled into a frown. Her eyes on the corpse avidly, she murmured, "It's Yuura."

He then looked at Chiyo. "Yuura?" He hadn't expected Chiyo to recognize the corpse, but to recognize this corpse spoke volumes about the actions of the Akatsuki.

"He was a jounin on the Kazekage's council."

Kakashi nodded. Yuura's actions apparently had been a plant by the Akatsuki; for a plant to sneak as far as into the Kazekage's council and not be detected for years terrified him. Was there a plant in Konoha? There probably was, but exactly how far did the plant reach in the shinobi hierarchy? Did the shinobi even know that he or she was being used by Uchiha Itachi, Konoha's member in the Akatsuki? Just how much was Konoha's safety compromised by the actions of a single shinobi?

He avoided gritting his teeth; he knew that Chiyo and maybe the others would notice it. His worry would only cause the mission to fail, and with their progress so far into the mission, it wouldn't do any good for Suna-Konoha alliance, Suna, or the Kazekage.

"How is it possible for someone – anyone to be so…"

His eyes shifted towards the light voice not marred with age. Sakura stood a little bit away from him but not as far away as Tsurugi. Her eyes were wide with some emotion – he couldn't tell which one, terror or surprise or some obscure emotion that he only attributed to someone that had never truly experienced the true horrors of the life of a shinobi.

Eyes flicking back to the corpse, he answered quietly, "We are shinobi. We are killers."

Sakura looked at him with wide unbelieving eyes, and he didn't dare look back. She needed to learn that trained assassins were just that, and her medic-nin status did not matter in the overall scope of life. A medic-nin is a shinobi, and shinobi are killers. And in order for her to be successful later on in her career, she needed to fully understand and accept it.

Abruptly, Chiyo looked away from the corpse and focused all their attention on her. Her eyes carefully scanned the area. "We better leave."

Kakashi nodded but stood for a moment longer looking at the corpse. He wasn't sure if they should leave the corpse where it was. Despite the fact that Yuura was Uchiha Itachi's substitute, Yuura had been a shinobi of Suna, and there could be antagonistic shinobi out there that could have a jutsu that could extract information from the dead. He just couldn't leave the corpse out there as prey for vultures.

Tsurugi turned around. There was still blood splatter scattered across his face, but the blank expression that spread across his face unnerved him even more. Deep down, as he looked into those cerulean eyes, he couldn't help but feel as if those eyes weren't meant to be blank or emotionless. Blue, to him, was a color that he always associated with the great illustrious sky.

With the same lack of emotion in his eyes, Tsurugi told them blankly, "I will seal the body."

Sans a response from the rest of the team, especially from the team leader, Tsurugi took out a scroll, a brush, and an inkwell from the depths of his sleeves. He unfurled the scroll, dipped the brush in the inkwell, and started a seal. The brush literally flew across the paper outlining the conditions of the sealing and all other parameters. As Tsurugi drew the seal, Kakashi grew more and more intrigued by Tsurugi's skills.

Depending on the conditions of a mission, shinobi usually had scrolls prepared to collect dead bodies, and few to no shinobi had the ability form or alter an existing seal. Shinobi that usually go on missions that concern dead bodies usually can write out a seal based on a premade seal foundation, but only seal masters could create a brand new seal without any foundation at all for an on-the-spot sealing.

Tsurugi set the brush down and his hands blurred as he performed the necessary hand seals to apply chakra to the ritual. His lips moved but no sounds issued out. Straining his ears, Kakashi tried to make out any sound coming from Tsurugi's mouth but even with his acute sense of hearing, he could make out no words.

Merely watching a sealing ritual is a spectacle on its own. The ink characters moved out from the scroll and reached over to grab the corpse's stiff form before yanking it into the depths of the seal; as the corpse disappeared into the scroll, the ink characters slowly moved back into their original position before Tsurugi activated the ritual.

Most sealing rituals had a style depending on the seal master that originally created it, but most styles include placing the body on top of the seal so not to expend so much chakra. The chakra consumption needed to form malleable and realistic ink characters had to be enormous, but as Kakashi thought about it more and more, he realized that Tsurugi probably had enough chakra to bring even the Hokage to her knees just by bringing it all out to bear upon her, not that he would ever do it considering the fact that she was his last relative alive.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts mentally, he calmly watched Tsurugi roll up the scroll, tie it off, and slip it back into the endless sleeves of his kimono. With his mind still mulling over the mystery that was Tsurugi, he finally recognized that Tsurugi had put multiple seals on the insides of his sleeves for storage; so back at the village when Tsurugi had presented his arms for inspection, he was supposed to inspect the supplies that were inside seals. Apparently, Tsurugi had thought that he would automatically assume that there would be seals all over the sleeves since Tsurugi was a seal master, and it was his own folly that he did not wrap his mind around the abilities and capabilities of a seal master when his own teacher was one.

Tsurugi got to his feet and stopped moving. He stood absolutely still just like how he was before he announced that he would be sealing Yuura's body; his absolute control was a way to keep anyone from deciphering his secrets, especially his emotions.

He blinked, and blinked again. He blinked hard, just to make sure that he wasn't seeing things again. For the slightest moment before he blinked, he thought he saw Naruto again.

In that moment, Naruto stood where Tsurugi was currently standing, and there was a hard glint in his eyes that only came from the sad guilt of killing someone. But Naruto wasn't here. Tsurugi was here.

He shook his head to force his mind off of the image of Naruto and his guilt. He looked at Tsurugi just to make sure that it was really Tsurugi there and not Naruto. Nodding more to himself than anyone else, he looked around signaling everyone's attention. "Okay. Let's move out."

Kakashi realized as he moved. He had to stop thinking about Naruto and when he would return. If Naruto was ready to return, he would have returned already.

* * *

They had only just arrived minutes before the rest of the rescue team arrived. Their fight with Hoshigake Kisame had ended in a disappointing victory since they had not actually defeated the nuke-nin but a mere substitution. The victory irritated him. The moment Hoshigake Kisame appeared in front of his team, he had a feeling that they had already started whatever they were doing to the Kazekage a long time ago.

He scowled inwardly; that fight with Hoshigake Kisame just proved how far his power ranked against an S-ranked nuke-nin. He knew right away that Hoshigake had only been there to stall for time. They had already stopped for the previous night; otherwise, they wouldn't have been as rested as they were today.

"Gaara is inside these rocks."

Neji looked at the summoned Pakkun. He was only slightly surprised at how long Pakkun had stayed with them, considering the little summon only had a certain amount of chakra to sustain him in the real world, but he knew that since Pakkun was Hatake's more often used summon, Pakkun innately knew how to manage his chakra usage.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he briefly looked up at the larger boulder that blocked the entrance into the infamous Akatsuki lair. He clapped his hands together in the Ram seal and focused. "Byakugan!"

Extending his sight, he frowned lightly, wondering whether he was really seeing what his eyes were telling him what he was seeing.

"How does it look, Neji?" Tenten's voice brought his mind back to telling the team.

Eyebrows furrowing, he vocalized his confusion. "Wh... What is that?"

His confusion alerted the rest of his team, and Lee spoke up. "Neji… what's happening inside the cave?"

He hesitated. The scene beyond the boulder barring their entrance was too… out there to explain, so he put his brain in his mouth. "Words can't explain…" He trailed off. There were no words to describe the scene that he had seen, and there was no accurate way of describing what was going on. In the first place, he wasn't really sure of what was exactly going on inside the cave.

The others looked at him in confusion, confusion that mirrored his own.

With his Byakugan still active, he noticed movement in their direction and mentally prepared himself. Focusing his attention on the movements, he only slightly calmed. He turned his head to the others, and informed them. "We have company."

His sensei's lips turned up into a small smile. "You're late, Kakashi."

"Eh… Well, we ran into some trouble along the way."

As the rest of his team turned to greet the rest of the rescue team, Neji noticed Tsurugi stare up at the paper seal stuck on the boulder barring their entrance into the Akatsuki lair. Tsurugi ignored all the greetings and continued to stare at the seal as if just by staring at it, it would reveal all the secrets of the life itself.

It was obvious that Tsurugi would be interested in the barrier that blocked their entrance. Tsurugi, after all, was a seal master, though he hadn't taken the proper tests to officially, in Konoha's standards, state that he was one. His mind overlooking all those technicalities, only Tsurugi's skill in sealing mattered in determining mastery of the subject.

That seal that Tsurugi had presented several days ago to the Council was proof enough of his skill. As a jounin, he had a passable amount of knowledge regarding sealing, and he could tell from the start that the level of that seal was far beyond his ken. Only those that truly knew sealing would know the full ramifications of what Tsurugi produced; he knew that Hiashi-sama knew.

His attention to the situation at hand returned when he heard Pakkun speak once more. "Well, I think I'll disappear, since I'll just be in the way if I stay. I wouldn't really be any help."

Neji turned to look at the rest of the team as Kakashi nodded to his dog summon. "Good work, Pakkun."

And a small _POOF_disappeared Pakkun back to whatever place he came from.

"Right! First off, this barrier, eh, Kakashi?" Gai gave a passing glance to their resident seal master before directing his question to the group in general. "How do we take it out?"

Immediately, he noticed Hatake hesitate. He never was one to think Hatake to hesitate; in fact, Hatake would be someone who would answer the question with promptness. Hatake's eyes drifted to the side, in the direction of a member of his team, in Tsurugi's direction. Even with Tsurugi's presence, it should impede him in answering Gai's question.

That split second of hesitation left just as soon as it came. "This particular 'Five Seal Barrier' is created by seals with 'Kin' written upon them placed in five places in the vicinity." He looked up at the seal on the boulder as he explained further. "The 'Kin' token you see in front of you, and other seals are in four other places. To remove the barrier, all of them must be detached."

Neji noted a slight hitch in Hatake's breath as the one-eyed jounin turned to the silent seal master, who was still staring at the 'Kin' token on the boulder. "Is there any way that you can remove it, Tsurugi?"

No answer came, but a small emphatic shake of the head answered their question. After a small moment of silence, Tsurugi started speaking. "Anything I do has to be done to all five seals, and that would take more time than just removing them."

He heaved a small yet weary sigh; obviously with Tsurugi stating that there was nothing the seal master could do about the situation, then the job of dealing with the seal went to him. There was no trouble with locating the seals; it was just the mere thought that he wouldn't be able to participate much in the Akatsuki battles. He knew that Gai and they would go off to find the seals since they were, after all, the faster team, speed-wise. Even if the tokens weren't far away, he doubted that Akatsuki would leave the seals unattended.

Just as he moved his hand to form the Ram seal, he heard a soft "Wait."

Turning to the voice, he was only mildly surprised when he realized that Sakura had spoken. He frowned at her. Sakura wasn't one to stop him from using his Byakugan; in fact, she usually wouldn't stop many actions of the team if she agreed with them. He heard no protest from her, yet she stopped him.

She looked down at her twisting and fidgeting hands. She bit her lip before taking a deep breath and turned to Tsurugi, who still stared at the seal. "Who are you?"

Her question was honestly surprising, and whomever they confronted out there yesterday only increased her suspicion and doubt of the seal master. She had a right to do so, though; her doubt and anxiety would only hinder the rest of the team if she were to keep doubting herself.

"Haruno-san, if you can't handle yourself simply because you are unaccustomed to a team member, then I suggest that next time, you request to remain solo."

Tsurugi's words were harsh and caustic, but they were blunt and to the point. His words pointed out the flaws in Sakura's logic of asking her question. Even though the young man hadn't been on a team for a while, there was still an inherent trust that he held for his teammates, a trust that came from the knowledge that loyalty to teammates formed the basis of Konoha's creed.

Sakura shook her head vehemently and furrowed her brows. Taking a firmer stance, she demanded, "I want to know how you know Uchiha Itachi. I want to know if your acquaintance with him jeopardizes our mission. I need—"

"You don't need to know, Haruno-san."

Since Neji and his team fought Hoshigake Kisame, it was given that the other half of the rescue team had to confront Uchiha Itachi, but no one knew that Tsurugi knew the estranged Uchiha. Just what did Tsurugi do to garner the attention of the infamous nuke-nin? There were so many questions in his mind that he wanted to blurt out and ask, but now wasn't the time or place. He inwardly frowned at Sakura's lack of respect for protocol and procedures.

Sakura ignored Tsurugi's words. "You haven't been honest with us, Tsurugi. When we go back to Konoha, I will bring all this to the Hokage's attention."

Those words apparently caught Tsurugi's attention, and the long-haired brunette finally turned away from his staring at the seal on the boulder. His face was still, passive, absolutely blank. His cerulean blue eyes held no trace of emotion and oozed an otherworldly feel from their emptiness. With a voice as empty of feelings as his eyes, he said, "You know who I am, Haruno-san. I am of Konoha's founding blood, and there is nothing that would make me turn my back to the land I call home."

Neji, seeing a slight movement, looked at the medic-nin with the slightest amount of disbelief. She had taken a step back away from Tsurugi in fear; she sensed and saw something that no one else did. What did she sense that no one else could? With Sakura's sensitivity to chakra developed from her training as a medic-nin, she may have felt a chakra pattern that caused adverse effects, but why would only she be feeling them? As a Hyuuga, he also had a sensitivity to chakra but there was nothing strange around them.

He momentarily glanced at Tsurugi, whom Sakura was staring at in fear, but received no warning signals from the seal master. The indifferent yet peaceful aura surrounding the newcomer had only intensified several moments ago, but nothing had happened to cause a great alarm as Sakura signaled it should be.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he observed Hatake's actions only to not that one-eyed man was also watching the ongoing scene with calculating interest.

After a long silence, Sakura took a deep breath and snarled openly at Tsurugi. "Then where the hell is Naruto?"

Neji looked at Sakura then to Tsurugi in surprise. Naruto? Tsurugi knew where Naruto was? After years of no information, in front of him is a person that knows where Naruto was.

Everyone's eyes were riveted on Tsurugi's still form; his blank eyes slowly and strangely regained a bit of shine that showed that the person inside was human and had a heart. For the smallest second, he thought that Tsurugi's eyes were darting back in forth in panic, but it was probably a trick of the mind.

A slight shifting caught his eyes since his mind was already in a state of high suspense. Just the mere thought that this stranger knew where his friend was brought out the adrenaline, and his eyes, though not actively using chakra, flickered over to the movement. He was caught by surprise when the old woman Chiyo shifted uneasily.

Chiyo's eyes flew back and forth in some sort of panic, a subdued and barely noticeable panic but a panic nonetheless. She held herself unnaturally still, but her stillness gave her away. Just by the guessing at her shifting during the conversation, he concluded that she knew something about the relationship between Naruto and Tsurugi. Just how Chiyo knew eluded him, and he restrained himself from asking. To ask now would only be asking more trouble than was necessary at the moment.

The old woman's eyes finally stopped on Tsurugi's unnaturally still form. Tsurugi's still form differed from Chiyo's unnatural stillness; Chiyo's immobility contrasted her entire character while Tsurugi's seemed almost like he was a person meant to have absolute control over all his bodily functions. He decided then that he would demand all the answers later, and he looked back at the young man that knew the whereabouts and information about his friend.

Suddenly, Tsurugi smiled. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Itachi-kun." He paused. "He's not here."

His eyes hard on the seal master, he grit his teeth. This bastard wasn't telling them anything; Naruto was still out there and this bastard wasn't telling them anything about Naruto! That goddamn &!#)(∧≠ bastard! The tension was palpable and sharp enough to stab that bastard's heart, not that he had one.

"&!#) that! You know where he is! Tell us!" screamed Sakura, her rage overcoming her senses.

He couldn't blame her for her anger; Naruto was supposed to have been back half a year ago. He hadn't come back though. There had been no news or information about him for years, and they, especially Sakura, suffered from the silence that surrounded them.

Just as suddenly as the smile appeared, it vanished from Tsurugi's face. Neji shivered but made no move to rub his arms to create more warmth. His anger was enough to keep him warm.

Narrowing his eyes on Sakura, he pondered on her next move before he noticed her skin formed goose bumps and calmly noted that the air wasn't cold at all. She also shivered and also made no move to rub her arms; her anger apparently was dissipating quickly under the sullen and aloof cerulean gaze.

Suddenly, Sakura's actions clicked in his head. The cold, the fear, the chakra sensitivity were all coming from Tsurugi. This awful feeling came from the bastard. He didn't dare take a step back away from the cold being, but oh how he so wanted to.

At that moment and maybe for a long time, he wanted to run as far away from this creature that stood in front of them and with them. But it was his fear that kept him rooted to the spot.

Just as suddenly as the cold came, it went away when Tsurugi started lost the cold expression and adopted a neutral one. Just by changing his expression, the atmosphere had changed so much, and he wondered just how much of this came from his chakra and how much from the bastard's personality and aura.

"We are losing precious time idling away."

They all looked at the seal master in a cautious respect, but they moved their direct attention away from him. Neji dearly wanted to punch the smile off the bastard's face, but held himself back. He had a job to do, and he would do a damn good job just to rub it in the smiling freak's face.

"Neji." He looked over to his sensei, and Gai nodded before quietly saying, "the seals."

As the team looked towards him, he formed the Ram seal, with hands that were almost imperceptibly trembling, and focused his chakra. "Byakugan."

His vision instantly started expanding away from their position, away from their location, and onto the area surrounding them. He found his job a bit tedious, though he knew how important his kekkai genkai was to his team. With all the thoughts swirling viciously in his mind, he forcibly pushed himself to concentrate of the duty set to him. Focusing on the task at hand, he searched for his four seals.

"Found them," he murmured as he concentrated on the distance that he had to stretch his vision to actually find them. "On top of a rock about five hundred meters northeast of here… on the trunk of a tree, on a river back, three hundred fifty meters southeast… on a wall of rock about six hundred fifty meters northwest… and inside a grove about eight hundred meters south west…"

Taking the bag off his back, Gai retrieved several radios from inside the bag and handed them out to his team. "If it's that range, we'll use these radios. While we're taking Neji's directions, we can keep in communication and we'll find the locations of the seals."

He casually took the radio from his sensei and wrapped it around his neck before putting on the earpiece. The mood was somber and completely different from what it was before Sakura had spoken up. A heavy weight burdened their shoulders, and he knew until the mission was over and until Tsurugi answered all their questions that they would still bear the tremendous weight.

Tenten stated, "Radio placement, ok."

Gai gave Kakashi a thumbs-up with a great grin typical of the hyped up jounin. "Speed-wise, my team is faster. The frequency is 174. Wait for our message."

The one-eyed jounin took the radio that his "rival" handed to him and fastened it to his neck. "It's up to you…" Apparently, even with the somber mood, Hatake was trying to crack a joke; it was quite evident that once Hatake said that, there would be an…

"TEAM GAI! LET'S GO WITH THE FULL POWER OF YOUTH! SCATTER!"

Just as Neji jumped away from his position, he closed his eyes and took in a shuddering breath. Did his sensei have to do that? The embarrassment.

With his Byakugan still active, for the next few minutes or so, he continued to guide his teammates and his sensei to the locations of the seals. In a way it was a hassle trying to determine just the exact distance that each member was away from a seal, but as a Hyuuga, it was essential that he knew how to use his kekkai genkai to the fullest. His mind was full of thoughts that kept trying to distract him, but with the constant noise coming from the radio and from his teammates, he was able to work towards his goal.

Just as he got to his destination seal, which looked no different than the seal placed on the boulder they had stood in front of not more than a few minutes ago, he radioed in. "A little further south, Lee."

"Ok! Got it!"

"Same here!"

His sensei's voice came over loud and clear. "Right, everyone! Remove the seals!"

Taking the edge of the seal in his hand, he briefly wondered what would happen in that split second before he tore the seal off the rock. Would some great disaster befall them, or would nothing happen at all? Knowing that Akatsuki was an organization comprised of nine S-ranked nuke-nin prepared him for the worst. He doubted that the infamous organization would leave their lair's primary barrier unprotected.

But that split second was over; he had ripped the seal off.

Hatake's voice came from over the radio. "We'll break in with a button-hook entry." The sound of paper ripping came from his earpiece and he heard the one-eyed jounin's cry of "Sakura!" before hearing the medic-nin's response of "Okay!"

_BOOM!_

The reverberating destruction of the boulder nearly deafened him. He felt no pity for his fellow teammates if their eardrums were blown out; he was lucky and glad that his own were ruined from the earsplitting noise.

Concentrating on the other half of rescue team, he saw the falling and crumbling remains of the great large boulder. His vision focused on the two characters that stood to the side and did nothing to aid the two active members of that half of the team. His mind sparked, his anger giving more precision to his concentration, but he forced himself to calm.

Pulsing chakra caught his attention in all directions, more specifically near his teammates. It was strange; there was no pulsating chakra before they had reached their position and even after they had ripped the seal off, there was no immediate reaction. But this was Akatsuki; even if the reaction wasn't immediate, it would still be one.

In front of him, the ground shifted as a pile of compact dirt sprouted out of the ground.

"Neji…" came Gai's voice over the radio with the slightest hint of worry and concern.

"Yeah… Here too…" he replied.

The form that sprouted out from the ground slowly formed a humanoid shape, before detailing hair, facial features, and finally clothes. In the end, he faced something that he wished he would have never thought he could face, and even if he had thought this was possible, there was no possible way that he could believe he would ever encounter it. But he had come face to face with this opponent.

Using his Byakugan, he recognized the situation that all his fellow teammates were facing, and their respective problem mirrored his own.

"What the hell is this?" voiced an indignant Tenten.

Lee suggested over the communication device, "Perhaps, it's the enemy's trap."

Well, great thinking Lee. Hadn't they all already deduced that this was a trap designed to prevent the escape of those that removed the seal? Did Lee have to say the obvious? Neji pushed himself away from thinking bad of his teammates; he had come to respect Lee and his abilities during the time that he had known the taijutsu specialist.

"Indeed…" replied Gai as the jounin faced his own opponent. "It seems like even if the barrier is disabled, a trap activates to prevent the enemy's entry."

Quickly mulling over his sensei's words, Neji said, "Separating a four-man team into one each… Going this far to carefully secure the barrier… These are some people."

Akatsuki… They truly were a group to fear; an alliance of the world's most infamous and dangerous nuke-nin proved to be great threat. His team wasn't even facing Akatsuki, but the challenge they provided was probably no match to the one that the other half of the rescue team had to face. When they finished with the opponents standing in their way, they would rejoin the rest of the rescue team.

The only problem was the opponents standing in their way were themselves.

Neji honestly had half a mind to say hello.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

**Author's Notes:** I'M DONE! I'm so proud of myself; after several months of working on this single chapter, I've finally finished this chapter. This chapter was freakishly hard to write. Let me rant; I have the need to rant about how hard it was to finish this chapter. First, at the end of summer last year, my computer broke down; after three years of serving me faithfully and efficiently (maybe not that efficiently but still enough), it broke down. I tried partitioning the drive, but that didn't work because it kept on shutting down just as it booted up. (Note: the central fan and the CPU fan didn't work that well so it didn't get cool fast enough and it got too hot too fast). So I tried to wipe the HDD completely after mourning for several minutes over a good start to this chapter that I couldn't save. When that didn't work, I didn't start crying but almost went catatonic… Haha… I convinced my parents to buy me a brand new customized laptop and they did! YAY NEW LAPTOP! That took 2 weeks to make and 2 more weeks to ship; by that time, I was back in school and furiously doing homework that wouldn't stop piling up. So even after I got my computer and installed all the software, I still had the problem of restarting the chapter. I did restart it and it looked really good… then I got sidetracked with all these anime that were begging to be watched. Finally, I got hooked on Katekyoushi Hitman REBORN (which I highly recommend to everyone!) and my mind went totally tangent… and then I started writing original fiction again. My friends then started yelling at me about not finishing a story before starting a new one. I ignored them, but it came back and bit me on the ass. I got bored of all the fanfiction I was reading, so I got into the mood of writing again. So I've finally finished after several months of not updating. I really hope that you like this chapter; it's my longest one as of yet.

The POV of this chapter are Itachi, Kakashi, and Neji. I initially wanted Sakura to end the chapter, but I couldn't get the POV to fit her so I decided to keep with Neji, so Neji has this long-ass POV that takes up half of the chapter. Half way through Neji's POV, I realized that there were a lot of things that I had to add in, and the words just kept on coming and wouldn't stop. You'll notice that this chapter isn't the standard 15 pages, but in fact 17 pages including the author's note (16 without).

I only realized something three-fourths the way into the chapter. I titled this chapter "Confrontation Following Reunion" with the whole idea focused on Itachi and Naruto's confrontation after their reunion (the greeting at the end of last chapter). I inadvertently made several situations reflect the title. When the rescue team reunited outside the Akatsuki lair, Sakura confronted Naruto/Tsurugi. I hadn't thought about this before, but what a coincidence!

I've hit and passed the 8,000 word mark on this chapter!

STATS:  
Chapters – 7  
Word Count – 47628  
Reviews – 163  
Hits – 29579  
C2 – 84  
Favs – 185  
Alerts - 293

It's been a long time since I've gone over all the small things that I include in the chapter, so if you have any questions, just review and ask about them. I will be putting up reviewer response next chapter; next chapter will be an intermission chapter focusing on Gaara. I thought that I needed a break from just writing about Naruto, so time to focus on another jinchuuriki.

This chapter hasn't been beta'd so I'll need someone to beta this chapter as well as the rest of this story for me. Please send me an example of your work.

REVIEW!


	9. Intermission: Resurrection

**Title**: New Future of the Legends**  
Author**: Nakora-chan**  
Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com**  
Series**: Naruto**  
Rating**: T (may end up M later on)**  
Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have passed since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Intermission: Resurrection**

* * *

For him, time did not exist. He didn't know where he was, nor did he care. Nothing mattered. He had stopped feeling anything some time ago, and the pain before that. He knew that he was still conscious, or was he unconscious? It didn't matter. Nothing did.

He wondered when his story started. Stories never started from the beginning, and when they did, they were always about the main character. He knew that he wasn't a main character; he was a character in a story. He just never saw himself as the star in his own story. His story was only a part of some larger one, some greater scheme of things. He had only been aware of his story when he looked up at the blue sky and the sky looked back understandingly.

He wondered when his story ended. Stories always have a beginning, and they always have an end.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

**Author's Notes: **This is the single shortest thing I have ever written. It's not supposed to be a long intermission, and I was surprised that I couldn't follow the plotline's monologue. For those that didn't read my author's note and probably won't read this author's note, this POV is Gaara's, and I almost desperately wanted to make it longer, but when I got the third paragraph, I just had to end it with something short and abrupt but something with a sense of closure. It's funny; the name of the intermission is "Resurrection". One would expect that this would be something about returns, but I wrote something not relating to the title at all and I am not going to change it.

Just as a note for those that didn't notice, the word "sky" will be repeating throughout the rest of the fanfiction; sometimes it'll be coupled as "blue sky" but please take note and a lot more things will become clearer in the way that I write. Note… metaphor. YAY, I used things I learned in English in my everyday life!

STATS:  
Chapters – 8  
Word Count - 55887  
Reviews - 183  
Hits - 37711  
C2 - 94  
Favs - 214  
Alerts - 336

I said last chapter that I would be posting reviewers' responses and so here they are (sorry if it's so long):

Fooboo27 – I'm sorry that I'm using so much of the Japanese language in my writing, but I think that sometimes having the Japanese adds effect. There are things in Japanese that can't be explained by using the English language, such as the suffixes –san, -sama, etc. If anyone requires a translation of the Japanese, please email me and I'll write one up and post it on my LJ.

Saetan – I'm so glad that you've refound my story, and as you can tell, I've been rewriting. I'm glad that one of my original readers is still supporting me. Thanks!

Really Frozen Phoenix - I've never had anyone say that I can maintain a feeling of paranoia and wrongness. I was aiming for that, and I had doubts for that chapter that I didn't do a good enough job, but I'm glad that you thought that I had it right. Thanks for the note on feminism/femininity!

enthor – You mentioned in your review things about Naruto's seemingly effortless grace back in Chapter 1, and I'm glad that you pointed it out. So what happens is that I am going to be referring back to Chapter 1 later on in the story, but right now, Chapter 1 is the only part of the story so far that Naruto has showed a part of who he really is. Thanks for pointing it out and thanks for reviewing.

ninofchaos – I actually hadn't examined everything in detail even though I thought I did. I was going by a general timeline in years, but you pointed out things that I had never really given thought to like how close the birthdays of the characters are to the events in the story. I'm glad that you pointed it out, and the only thing with the timeline now is that we don't know exactly when the series started in relation to the Kyuubi attack.

EroEro-Kitsune – I'm sorry, but I wasn't actively trying to make the clan heirs in Chapter 5 like bad people. I was just trying to reinforce the fact that they would only submit to the contract if there were benefits and if they could gain something from the situation. I honestly wasn't trying to make them seem like "useless b-stards", and if I have the willpower to and the time, I would go back and change it so that it would feel better. Now that I think about it, I can twist it to my plot, but still, I'm sorry if I made them seem superficial.

Darkwill0w – I think it's just you. This plot is 100 made by me; I could even scan the plot outlines I have for each chapter. If there is another fic out there that is the same as this one, then they're copying this fic and I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Edengrave – Thanks for your review; I really appreciate all the things that you commented on, and I'm glad that you enjoyed the rewrite.

kiki – I'm glad that you like the "Ohayo, Itachi-kun" part. I really like that part, too; when I put that at the end of chapter 7, I nearly squealed at my genius because I rarely read fanfiction that have an unexpected ending that leaves the reader in excitement rather than disappointed eagerness.

Fall out of grace – When I put Chiyo dubbing Gai as the green freak, I purposely left out the quotation marks because to Chiyo, Gai's name is green freak.

Zetnnik - I never noticed that there were a lot of mysteries in this fic; I was more concerned that I would get everything jumbled out or would leave something out. You asked who this HE that Tsurugi would be going to for 3 months. That'll be revealed in probably… not next chapter, but maybe in next 2 or 3 chapters. The 1st week after Naruto left Konoha will be revealed also later on, and your last question I can't answer because it'll all be revealed in the next 2 or 3 chapters.

ViperineVampire – I LOVE YOU! You wrote the longest review I've ever had! I had it printed out and showed it to all my friends and told them that I was inspired by your great review! When you reviewed, I immediately started coming up with more of chapter 8, and I still love how you just point out things that I never notice. Thank you for the GREAT review!!

Raptor2001 – Tsurugi/Naruto gives not everyone a cold feeling; so far only Sakura, Kankurou, Neji, and Jiraiya can feel the cold.

someone179 – As much as that would help out with the reading of the story itself, it would screw up the layout/look of the story which I don't want to do. Anyway, it's half the fun to figure out exactly who is thinking, even though I do give a heads up in the author's note of the previous chapter.

Mandara – Naruto will show himself soon; that's all I can say before people start flaming me about spoiling. Why is Sakura so against Tsurugi? I can't say anything about that but when Naruto reveals himself, some things will come to light.

snowecat – I never realized that Tenkou resembles Sai with that odd smile, but I do have to say that Tenkou has a gentler smile and is more honest about smiling than Sai. Sai has never felt emotions before, while Tenkou has so it's only natural that Tenkou's smiles are more heartfelt. When I started writing this fanfiction, Naruto didn't have a disguise but he did have an eerie smile just like Tenkou has right now, and I started writing this fanfiction before Kishimoto had even introduced Sai so I ask that you try not to draw parallels but it's fine that you do. Maybe, I'll do that myself… Has Sasuke met Tenkou before? That I can't answer because that'll reveal things about the plot… oops…

DONE!

Thank you to all my reviewers for their support and their feedback. Your feedback makes me feel all the better about getting back to this story since I'm so distracted by other things in life. I want to repeat this: NO PAIRINGS! I don't do pairings; I can't do pairings, thus no YAOI OR YURI OR WHATEVER! Romance isn't my thing to write, so I don't think I can write it to save my life.

I've been saying that the chapters haven't beta'd and I've been getting offers for betas but I decided that I'm not going to have people beta my work. It'll get too troublesome, and I'm sure that everyone wants these chapters as soon as I finish them, so I'm going to have to ask that people stop offering. I'm only writing that the chapters haven't been beta'd to tell you that grammar and spelling aren't all perfect.

I mentioned earlier in a response that I usually put up a preview of POVs in the author's note; well, I haven't planned out POVs yet, so you're going to have to speculate and wait for the next chapter!

If you have any questions or concerns that you need me to address immediately, just email me or send a review (which I really want by the way) and I'll try to respond as quick as I can. Just to let you know, I'll probably address all questions in my author's notes or in the story itself, so don't worry too much about some things. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!

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	10. Death Hailing Reunoin

**Title**: New Future of the Legends  
**Author**: Nakora-chan  
**Email**: nakora(dot)chan(at)gmail(dot)com  
**Series**: Naruto  
**Rating**: T (may end up M later on)  
**Pairings**: None (If I have time later on, I will create an alternate version with pairings)  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.  
**Summary**: Three years have passed since Naruto has left Konoha. It is about time that he returns, but when he does, he reveals things about himself and Konoha that has never been known to the public. Despite what he has become, he strives to break free from all bonds.  
**Warnings**: AU, OC, OOC, blood, abuse, mutilation (last three will occur later on)

* * *

**Chapter 7: Death Hailing Reunion**

* * *

"Sasori and Deidara, deal with the ones alive. Capture the Daiitokumyouou. The rest of you, scatter."

He inwardly raised his eyebrows, though no one would see if he raised his eyebrows at all. Hiruko shrouded him from everyone's knowledge, though he did have an inkling that Uchiha Itachi saw past his wooden guise. Damn that Uchiha and his Sharingan; he hated that man. He doubted that he hated Uchiha Itachi as much as his goddamn partner did.

"Itachi, what kind of bastard is the Daiitokumyouou?" All of the Akatasuki knew about Itachi's famous run-ins with the Daiitokumyouou and how the Daiitokumyouou was the only person that knew the whereabouts of Uzumaki Naruto. By capturing the Daiitokumyouou, they would torture and extract the information about Uzumaki Naruto to retrieve the Kyuubi.

The Konoha missing-nin said not a word, and merely looked at him with a calculating gaze. That gaze and his Sharingan unnerved him, but damn how he hated this man. Not to his surprise was Uchiha Itachi's silhouette disappearing from view since ritual had already ended and the man was entitled to his chakra.

"Tell him now."

Uchiha Itachi remained silent, and he wondered just how long it would take before the Uchiha was obligated to say something. But the silence didn't last long. "He will be the smiling Buddha."

"Huh? What the hell do you mean?" he calmly snarled. This man infuriated him to no end; his encounters with the Daiitokumyouou must have addled his already addled brain.

Nearby, his partner grumbled loudly, "That's all? Nothing more specific?"

Eyeing his stoic colleague, he could garner no more since the connection started failing and the image of Uchiha Itachi shimmered into nonexistence. The bastard always chose the most inopportune moments to vanish.

The ground near the giant form of the King of Hell rumbled as the statue sank into the earth, leaving this dimension for some place unknown for the time being until the next bijuu-jinchuuriki extraction. The various dark shapes standing in for their respective individual of the organization that stood on the tips of the each finger of the King of Hell statue, one by one, vanished from their positions, leaving on the leader and them.

"I'll be waiting for contact."

_POOF!_

As soon as the large yet great work of art that forever immortalized the depiction of the King of Hell disappeared from sight, he and his partner landed near the dead body of the Ichibi jinchuuriki. He wondered just what was so special about the Ichibi jinchuuriki that made even the great Daiitokumyouou had to take action; he briefly mulled over the fact that the Daiitokumyouou knew the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, who in turn knew the Ichibi jinchuuriki, and thus felt obligated to help a friend of a friend. His ponderings would get him nowhere for now; only the Daiiktokumyouou could answer his questions, and answer them he undoubtedly would not.

Keeping in mind the apparent special relationship between the Daiitokymyouou and the Ichibi jinchuuriki, Sasori questioned the sanity of his younger partner as Deidara carelessly sat on top of the body of the dead jinchuuriki. Did the idiot not comprehend the strength of Uchiha Itachi's rival? He knew that his fellow artist strove to defeat Uchiha Itachi ever since their initial meeting and acquaintance, and the man probably thought in his mind that this battle with Uchiha Itachi's rival would give him a measure of his strength against the Uchiha's. But this idiot just did not get it.

He said nothing as Deidara took out a small bird figurine and enlarged it with application of chakra. From inside Hiruko, he sneered; his partner's interpretation of art would never come close to rival his own. After all, the idiot thought that "art is a bang!" He scoffed at that idea; art is immortal.

They didn't wait long before the large boulder that replaced the only entrance and exit of the cavern crumbled under the efforts of the "rescue team" accompanying the Daiitokumyouou. He wondered about how many shinobi did Suna send to rescue their Kazekage, and smirked at his own answer to his question.

After all the damage that his fellow member had caused to the hidden village, the shinobi there could not spare anyone to rescue their precious Kazekage; they focused too much on keeping themselves and the village intact to send anyone. He mocked their loyalty and their dedication to their leader.

No one stood in the entrance and he smirked slightly as they still used a button-hook entry. He praised them for their caution but it was unnecessary on their part; there was only one person on this rescue team that the two of them had to be wary of, and that person would hardly care for a button-hook entry.

The four man team flashed into view and he laughed inwardly at their responses. The surprise on their faces truly amused him, especially the expression on the face of his grandmother. The shock disappeared from her face as soon as she recognized the puppet that he resided in, and the look of ferocity excited him.

His grandmother had certainly aged since he had last seen her. He half expected her face to soften after seeing him as he was now, but in fact, there was a certain warmth about her that shouldn't have been there.

When he left her so many years ago, he wanted her to wallow in self-pity and self-deprecation of letting her "precious" grandson turn into a missing-nin; he wanted her to suffer. He wanted her to suffer like how he suffered. That was part of the reason he left, and he doubted that his grandmother could or would even begin to understand the immensity of his parting. After all, she still could not wrap her mind around the fact that he had left, her and her village.

Yet seeing her not suffering as much as he suffered angered him and intrigued him. There was something that pulled his grandmother out of her self-deprecating state, and she somehow managed to garner enough courage to confront him. Did she have enough courage to face what he had done to himself? Would she waver? Would she stand? Or would she fall?

"Well then… Which one of you is the Daiitokumyouou, I wonder?" asked his idiot partner.

Scanning the faces of the shinobi rescue team, he quickly eliminated his grandmother and the pink-haired woman. The other two… one he recognized as the son of Hatake Sakumo, the man who killed his parents, and he crossed out Hatake Kakashi as the Daiitokumyouou, which left the long-haired kimono-wearing shinobi to be the Daiitokumyouou.

The Daiitokumyouou smiled. The smile had not disappeared when he entered the cavern, and it did not disappear when his fellow artist asked who of them the Daiitokumyouou was. Instead, the young man kept his calm, his eerie calm that he forced him to agree with Uchiha Itachi. The Daiitokumyouou truly seemed to personify the smiling Buddha.

"That one… Well, seems like him…" mused Deidara to his right. He wondered what the explosion specialist thought of the infamous rival of Uchiha Itachi.

In his opinion, the Daiitokumyouou didn't look like much, but looks hardly told him anything.

* * *

Chiyo knew from the moment that they had entered the cavern that Tsurugi held back. The sight of the blonde Akatsuki member sitting inconsiderately on the body of the Kazekage shocked her and the others, and she hardly faulted Tsurugi if he were to instantly attack upon entering.

But Tsurugi did not make any sudden attacks or movements.

Her eyes firmly on her image of her grandson inside his puppet and his partner, she mused on all the possible actions that either side could take but decided to see what Tsurugi would do.

"Deidara-san and Sasori-san, return Gaara-sama's body."

Tsurugi truly surprised her, every time. There was no trace of anger or any other emotion laced in his voice as he calmly spoke. The level of control always surprised her; he usually never controlled himself in anything during his stay with her in Suna, always bouncing around, smiling, laughing, and the presence of the Kazekage always amplified his lack of control. But the discipline he displayed in the presence of the dead Gaara astounded her.

Both Kakashi and Sakura looked at Tsurugi with surprise at his control of his emotions. They never expected that the boy would just simply ask for the return of the Kazekage; the despondency in their stances, after they had seen the unseemly sight of the Kazekage's body, explained how much they had hoped that the Suna leader would be alive to rescue. They also had expected that Tsurugi would also show the same sort of emotions, but their lack of understanding of Tsurugi's character only confirmed Tsurugi's desire for secrecy and control.

She noticed both Akatsuki members' response to Tsurugi's demand, but neither responded verbally.

"Return Gaara-sama's body."

Her heart ached. Just how much was Tsurugi hurting? How much did it hurt Tsurugi not to lose control and not to just attack? The Tsurugi demanding for his best friend's body calmly wasn't the Tsurugi who smiled brilliantly and laughed whole-heartedly alongside the Kazekage. This Tsurugi did not scream out painfully. This Tsurugi stabbed wounds into her heart every moment he did not cry.

The other two members of their rescue team merely watched the seal master with wondering eyes. Their eyes asked questions but their lips did not move.

They didn't understand. They didn't know. They weren't there when this boy had first come to her after his master dropped him off with her. They didn't see the way that his face lit up with happiness, sky blue eyes glowing, when his best friend came by. They didn't ever experience the warm feeling that flooded her heart whenever he smiled or laughed. Their hearts did not ache.

For the time that he had stayed with her in Suna, the rascal had wormed his way into her worn and troubled heart, not to replace her precious grandchild, but just to warm and heal a heart abused and broken by the hardships of shinobi life. She knew even back then that the brat had also endured the more painful experiences of being a shinobi, but he remained unbroken. She admired him, and soon within the duration of his stay, she could say that Tsurugi Tenkou had become something like a second grandchild to her.

He warmed her heart, and his iciness now brought tears to her eyes. She dared not let the tears fall; old women should not feel bad for the young. She had already experienced this pain, and Tsurugi needed to face it… but it hurt.

It hurt so much.

Kakashi's careful glance in her direction directed his suspicion on her true knowledge of the situation, but she would not reveal what she held in confidence.

Her aching heart remembered the bounce in his step and the quirk of a brilliant smile. His self-control scared her, and only the presence of her dear grandson could make her aching heart cry more.

* * *

"Return Gaara-sama's body."

Tsurugi kept repeating those words, not deviating at all, and that really worried Kakashi. He had no idea what kind of relationship existed between the two but Tsurugi's control was unnatural. Tension oozed out of the seal master's body, and his heart weighed down in his chest. Without anyone's notice, Tsurugi had wormed his way into their hearts, and the absolute control belied the boy's sadness.

Chiyo must have already known about Tsurugi and his past; her aura said everything. For a while, he thought her sadness was only for her grandson but her troubled glances in Tsurugi's direction spoke otherwise. Just how much Chiyo knew about Tsurugi went up with speculation, and he had a feeling that he would never know how much she knew about the mysterious boy.

The mysteries that surrounded Tsurugi would have to be addressed as soon as the mission ended, but he believed, despite orders, not all secrets would be revealed or could be revealed.

Yet one mystery had to be addressed right away: Tsurugi's status as Daiitokumyouou. The blonde Akatsuki member had asked just which one of them was the Daiitokumyouou, and to his knowledge, no one had every addressed neither Chiyo, Sakura, nor himself as Daiitokumyouou, leaving only Tsurugi.

Both of them focused their attentions on Tsurugi, and he grew increasingly frustrated with Tsurugi's mysteries. The more mysteries about the boy, the more danger the boy drew towards them.

Chiyo knew though. She knew the boy's secrets, maybe not all of them nevertheless some of them, but hadn't said anything. He wondered if her silence meant that the boy meant no harm, or that the boy would eventually reveal all secrets to be revealed.

Mentally, he hated his hesitation. His hesitation meant life or death in their current situation, and here he was having a crisis over the identity of an unknown boy on his team.

"_A leap of faith will take you far._"

Words came unbidden into his train of thought from a past long ago. He hid a smile; his sensei had always given the best advice.

"I'll look after this one."

Returning his full attention to the two Akatsuki members confronting them, he eyed the larger of the two. Akasuna no Sasori, an S-rank missing-nin, grandson to Chiyo, was certainly a formidable character, and he wondered how far any of his team would have to go just to defeat one member. This man, known for his incredible skills with puppets and genius poisons, probably had several, if not more, back up plans designed for the sole purpose of taking down opponents with the intents of mass destruction, even if original attack plans did not have the same range of destruction.

"It seems like the Daiitokumyouou wants to take this one back," said Sasori. Sasori's voice came out deep yet muffled through the cloth mask, and at that moment, Kakashi decided that he would not choose the one he fought. He would leave the decision to Tsurugi; he would take that leap of faith and let the boy choose their opponent of the two.

"Sasori-danna," the blonde— Deidara?—interrupted. "This'll probably make you angry, but I'll handle the Daiitokumyouou, hnn?"

For a second, Kakashi sensed something different from the blonde-haired missing-nin. The man said "Daiitokumyouou" with a harsh undercurrent, and he briefly wondered if there existed a relationship between Deidara and Tsurugi. Back in Suna, Tsurugi had spoken about the duo that had captured Gaara, but the boy hadn't given his information in a way that implied that he personally knew the missing-nin, not like the way that he spoke of and to Uchiha Itachi. So what was this man's relationship with Tsurugi?

"Don't push it, Deidara."

Deidara glanced towards his partner, tilting his head with an air of arrogance. "If an artist doesn't get high levels of inspiration, his sentiments are dulled, Sasori-danna. That god-damnable man has already proved the Daiitokumyouou's strength, hnn?"

God-damnable man?

"What? You call those explosions fine art? Fine art is something wonderful that's left long into the future, eternal beauty."

"They involve the same skilled labor, I respect you, but fine art is the beauty of that single fleeting moment of explosion."

Kakashi almost rolled his eyes in exasperation. Dear Kami-sama, were these two honestly arguing about art at a time like this? Their conversation only validated insanity. Either that or an abundance of confidence, and he voted for the latter.

His eyes shifting towards his team, he noted that Tsurugi had fallen silent. The boy hadn't demanded the return of the Kazekage's body for a while, and he wondered what got the boy silent. He got the feeling that the boy wouldn't stay silent for long, and that he would not stay still for any much longer. The boy had already started planning, his brains already running through scenarios and options available. Kakashi wondered what options Tsurugi had open and which ones were closed, but this wasn't the time or the place to waste unnecessary words. He hoped that his leap of faith was enough.

Sakura, on the other hand… a look of incredulity passed her face as she stared at the duo. "What… What kind of people are these?"

Over the course of the past three years, she hadn't gone on any major missions other than the ones required to keep up her rank as chuunin. The reason belonged to her status as a medic-nin; Sakura was on constant call at the hospital, similar to the Hokage and Shizune. She helped out in the hospital, nearly constantly, or she trained. She did not have to face the insanity within every shinobi everyday. She did not understand.

Despite her inexperience against major or dangerous opponents, the young kunoichi was skilled. She rivaled the Hokage in strength, and she could handle herself, no matter how much more powerful the opponent was compared to her. Sakura could manage.

"Return Gaara-sama's body," Tsurugi finally repeated, only this time, his hand reached into the vast enormity of his kimono sleeves and revealed a scroll. Just how many scrolls did Tsurugi conceal within his sleeves, and just how much equipment did the boy bring on this mission?

Calmly untying the knot closing off the scroll, Tsurugi let the purple string binding the scroll fall to the ground.

From his vantage point, Kakashi could only see the small portion that Tsurugi revealed covered with unintelligible scrawl that almost seemed like chicken scratch, but there was one area where the large kanji character for 'Heaven' seemed to be encircled. The boy bit his thumb, his teeth cutting past his skin, and blood started welling out of the small wound. Quickly, he swiped his bloody finger across the kanji character and the rest of the scroll.

_POOF!_

The scroll suddenly gone from sight, the one-eyed jounin eyed the weapon that Tsurugi summoned.

A naginata? Out of all the different types of weapons that Tsurugi could have pulled out, the boy pulled out a pole arm? Shinobi nowadays rarely ever used polearms; the only person alive that he knew that used a pole arm was Akimichi Chouza. The other man wielded the Kongou-Nyo form of the summon Monkey King Enma, the late Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi.

This naginata extended well past Tsurugi's head, the (approximately) two-meter-long shaft itself larger than Tsurugi. With the shaft longer than Tsurugi was tall, the one meter-long blade made the pole arm look very unwieldy in the seal master's hands. The steel of the blade, topping the weapon, gleamed with divine silvery blue sheen, its edge smooth and sharp. Strangely, where the steel met the shaft, the area seemed to be decorated with an array of multi-faceted jewels, only adding the magnificence of the pole arm. At the end of the shaft, there were several more jewels before coming upon a metal spiked cap.

Kakashi couldn't help but stare in awe at the magnificent weapon. Though the naginata awed him, he couldn't help but wonder if it could withstand the first hit. He honestly had enough experiences with a beautifully-made weapon that ended up sliced like butter.

"Ame-no-nuboko…"

Permitting himself a cursory glance in Chiyo's direction, he almost blinked in surprise at her astonished expression. He had expected the old woman to know about Tsurugi's abilities and his possessions since she was the only one to actually know Tsurugi personally, but this only proved that Tsurugi didn't trust anyone enough.

Ame-no-nuboko… he certainly heard of this legendary weapon though he had never seen it, its legend only matched by the legend of Kusanagi, the same Kusanagi the Sennin Orochimaru wielded. The gods above supposedly used Ame-no-nuboko to raise the land from the seas, after they churned the sea from the bridge between Heaven and Earth, Ame-no-ukihashi, with the same naginata.

Kakashi never expected in his entire life to see the divine weapon once wielded by gods, and he definitely did not expect the legend to be in the hands of a boy that he had only known for several days. As a shinobi, he should have been living by the old adage, "Expect the unexpected", but the mysteries and revelations that came with Tsurugi just pushed the limit of "the unexpected".

"Return Gaara's body," Tsurugi demanded, his stance confident. He held Ame-no-nuboko with both hands, its magnificent blue blade pointing at the ground, yet still ready to strike at any chance.

"Deidara, you little shit, are you trying to piss me off?"

"Well, then… I was right when I said it'd probably make you angry, hnn?"

The two blatantly ignored Tsurugi and kept up their argument about art.

Tsurugi snapped.

* * *

Deidara, the entire time, had been covertly watching the Daiitokumyouou, hearing his demands, watching his actions. He knew that the moment that he took out the legendary Ame-no-nuhoko that Tsurugi was serious, though how serious was to be seen. From all the information that he got from his contacts, he knew that Tsurugi had never revealed that he had Ame-no-nuboko to that bastard Uchiha Itachi. Heck, he doubted anyone knew that the Daiitokumyouou had it.

He briefly wondered what abilities and skills the once god-wielded weapon granted its user; he knew only second-hand information about Kusanagi from Sasori, who partnered with the Snake Sannin during his brief stint with Akatsuki.

According to Sasori, Kusanagi enabled the user to control wind currents and direct them in the direction of the swing, but Orochimaru apparently couldn't wield the sword to its fullest capacity, or so said Sasori. From what Sasori had seen, Orochimaru didn't have wind-elemental chakra as his primary element so the sword didn't or couldn't respond properly. Still… with the extent of damage the legendary and godly Kusanagi could inflict with an incompatible wielder, just simply having it made being incompatible bearable. He shivered at the thought of just how much damage a wind-type shinobi got his hands on the weapon.

Ame-no-nuhoko seemed to be a weapon that would act in a similar fashion, though guesses of granted abilities eluded him. The one question that seemed to scratch at his curious mind was how the Daiitokumyouou had gotten a hold of a weapon once wielded by a god, and how Orochimaru did the same.

Both hands on the pole arm, his stance speaking of his experience and time using the unwieldy thing, Tsurugi brought the naginata with a fast forward slash, and the chakra build up exploded from the tip of the blade.

_CRASH!_

Quickly having his clay bird masterpiece gobble up the dead body of the former Ichibi jinchuuriki, he hopped onto his magnificent artwork and moved aside, just in the nick of time. A great gush of chakra rushed past him, destroying the ground where he just stood on; he mused for a moment, '_Did Sasori-danna get caught up in that?_'

The sound of someone landing caught his attention, and Deidara smirked. So his fellow artist hadn't decided to die yet?

His clay bird gulping down the corpse, he knew that the infamous Daiitokumyouou would follow him, just from the catlike way the cerulean eyes followed his every movement. He inwardly crowed at his chance to see how far he measured against the man that rivaled Uchiha Itachi.

The entire area where he had stood just a while ago was completely destroyed; just looking at it, he could understand the awe in the legend. Tsurugi's weapon truly belonged to the gods at one point; there was no denying that fact. Seeing a ten meter wide trench from the skies terrified and excited him at the same time, especially since Tsurugi had only used a small portion of his chakra.

Watching from his vantage point above the entire scene, he grinned and directed his bird to fly out of the opening that the rescue team had created just to get inside. From the white-haired jounin's expression, he clearly surprised someone on the team.

Tsurugi, on the other hand… Deidara wanted to snarl and beat the crap out of that guy. That guy just had to keep on smiling; even while he demanded for the jinchuuriki's body, he smiled. He knew that the smile didn't reach the eyes… but hell… he would worship the deity that would let him beat the living crap out of this smiling bastard.

This emotion didn't surprise him at all; he wanted to do the same thing to that bastard Uchiha Itachi. Two bastards… one smiling, one emotionless…

Up in the air, he watched Tsurugi walked slowly out of the cave, his footsteps rippling on the water.

He wanted the guy to lose face just for once, and he wondered just how far he would have to push before Tsurugi really snapped. Even when he ignored the guy and talked to Sasori, Tsurugi only got angry enough to unleash his full powers for the smallest moment before restraining himself. He prided himself for getting Tsurugi to do that; even that bastard Uchiha Itachi hadn't gotten his "_rival_" that far.

He didn't care that he was being the bigger bastard and scoundrel for using a corpse; after all, dead humans were just that, corpses.

Not soon after the Daiitokumyouou appeared in the entrance of the cave, the white-haired one joined him on the top of the torii just outside the ritual area. Hatake Kakashi, also known as Copy Ninja Kakashi… a ninja with the Sharingan; he doubted he could hate someone as much as that bastard Uchiha, but he knew from the instant he laid eyes on that jounin that this man ranked high on his "must-die-because-of-Sharingan" list.

Hatake's hand went to the radio situated on the side of his head, and behind the large collar of his Akatsuki cloak, he hid the smirk that threatened to spill out and mock these Konoha shinobi. The bastard probably tried to contact the others that travelled with them, the rest of the rescue team, and from the frown that he could make out even from his distance, the bastard hadn't gotten a good response for them. The ones that had helped in breaking the barrier to the ritual grounds probably had their own problems to deal with, and they wouldn't be coming any time soon.

Despite this, he knew he had a tricky battle ahead. Tsurugi Tenkou was still an unknown factor.

Shifting on the white-haired bastard's part drew his attention away, and he nearly snarled when the bastard pushed up his hitae-ate to reveal that thrice-cursed Sharingan.

Every time he saw those cursed eyes, he remembered that time, the last time, the only time he had ever been so humiliated, the time that Uchiha Itachi had shown him up. He hated those eyes, and he hated the man behind those eyes.

Because the Daiitokumyouou wasn't particularly known for his genjutsu, Deidara briefly wondered if he needed to use his left eye against this duo. The bastard Hatake specialized in ninjutsu and genjutsu, but doubtless, that bastard had probably developed some special technique that defied all knowledge. Those Konoha bastards were wont to do so

How should he go about this? Keep it long-range? Go on the offensive on the get-go? Decisions… decisions… there were so many options open to him, and so little precious time he could use. Just how would he go about measuring his strength against the Daiitokumyouou? How to keep that bastard Hatake off his back?

"Copy Ninja Kakashi, are you sure you wanna fight me, hnn?" he asked loudly and clearly.

The decisions could screw themselves. Art was a bang!

"I dunno if I should be saying this, but Sasori-danna is strong than I am, hnn?"

Hatake didn't say anything, and that pissed him off more than if Hatake did say something. Silent bastards always pissed him off, especially when he was actually trying to piss the guy off.

From beside the bastard, Tsurugi declared, "Hatake-san, you should go help Haruno-san. I'll get back Gaara."

So the Daiitokumyouou didn't add a suffix to the Ichibi jinchuuriki's name; that was interesting. He knew that a close relationship existed between the Kyuubi jinchuuriki and the Ichibi one, and there was a similar relationship between the former and the Daiitokumyouou. With the degree of separation, Tsurugi Tenkou, known for his extreme formality, would never use anyone's name without a suffix.

He smirked; he was wearing down the great Daiitokumyouou; how he would love to smear that bastard Uchiha's face with this, hnn?

But what worried and angered him was the fact that this… _boy_ thought that they could fight equally and that he could undoubtedly pull a victory. That bastard!

_SWISH! FLAP! BOOM!_

Only the sound of the Ame-no-nuhoko cutting the air had prevented him from becoming sliced into pieces. Moving away from deep crevice made onto the walls of the canyon, he quickly formed another clay bird and swung it in their direction.

_CHING! THUNK! BOOM!_

He tested their awareness by throwing a small shuriken through the large cloud of debris.

_POOF! CHING!_

Standing deftly on the water, Tsurugi continued to stare him down while Hatake looked less challenging in terms of emotional need for vengeance. The duo together proved to be a formidable pair, watching out for the other's back, mused Deidara. Playing around with Tsurugi provided him much fun, since this was the man that not even Uchiha Itachi could faze, though it might have been the fact that the Uchiha bastard refused to play around with his opponents.

Tsurugi glared up at him with defiant eyes, even though a smile still lingered on the guy's lips. The smile did not reach his eyes, but he doubted that the smile ever meant anything. Tsurugi's emotions and mental frameset wasn't expressed through the lips or the way the facial muscles moved. Tsurugi's sky blue eyes told him the entire story, and they told him that the seal master's true intentions. Tsurugi was serious; from what the Uchiha bastard had told him, the Daiitokumyouou had never been serious in all their encounters. Another point for him.

"Return Gaara's body."

"You're an odd one," he responded. Smoothing out the expression on his face, he adopted a cold haughty face just to piss the black-haired shinobi off ever more. Using his higher standpoint to the best of advantages, he held himself similarly to the Uchiha bastard's usual stance, partially to mock the missing-nin and to annoy the Daiitokumyouou even further. "You're the only one that has stood up for a jinchuuriki, hnn?"

Deidara paused. "But this Gaara was odd too… So far, there haven't been any jinchuuriki who care about others."

The expression on Tsurugi's face didn't change, not that he expected it to do so though he did hope for it.

"Besides him, two jinchuuriki up until now were defeated by my colleagues. Their friends and those of their villages, not a single one came to save them, hnn?" He persisting in keeping the attention of Smiling Buddha; the longer he kept the duo away from taking actions, the longer he had to garner and conserve his chakra and to devise an effective plan of attack to take out the one person who held the key to finding the Kyuubi jinchuuriki.

As he spoke, he inwardly grinned at the anger beginning to stir in the one-eyed jounin. Hatake's eyebrows began to furrow, and his body tensed with hostility.

"Instead, it appeared that they were more on our side, hnn?" he continued to deride them, gleeful at making a man with Sharingan lose his cool.

From the data from that Uchiha bastard, Hatake had been the sensei of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki and Tsurugi had once been suspected of being the Kyuubi jinchuuriki himself. Hatake gave no impression of Tsurugi being the Kyuubi jinchuuriki but he could not deny the fact that Tsurugi may have been keeping secrets from everyone.

Though he didn't question the extents of Tsurugi's skill, he expected some sort of clue from Tsurugi through the rest of the team that accompanied the guy. The stereotype that Konoha shinobi usually gave off included an open and unreserved relationship with fellow shinobi, and Tsurugi hailed from that weak village. Yet the guy defied its stereotype, though how long he did so was up to chance.

Tsurugi unexpectedly took a step forward, seeming to prepare himself to fall into the next stance of his style using the legendary Ame-no-nuhoko.

The naginata was an artistic masterpiece, a sight to behold for years, maybe centuries, to come, though he was reluctant to admit it. He could not deny the beauty of the killing intent etched into the pole and forged into the blade. The skill that Tsurugi used to wield the weapon only amplified its greatness, only exceeded by its deeds from the legends. This weapon far outstripped that ugly Orochimaru's Kusanagi.

Hiding away his awe and desire for the naginata, he refocused in on scorning jinchuuriki in general, especially the Kyuubi and Ichibi jinchuuriki, to further rile the already pissed off shinobi, though said individual still smiled in the face of adversity. "Both so pitiful and detested… You couldn't ignore either of them, hnn?" A smirk found its way onto his lips. "Because Gaara's Ichibi was extracted, the guy died, and the Kyuubi jinchuuriki will share the same fate. Got it?"

The smile dropped.

The instance the smile fell away from the Smiling Buddha's face, Deidara knew that he had incurred the wrath of a Buddha.

* * *

_To Be Continued_

**Author's Note**: I tried! I really tried! I tried to write as much as I could for this chapter, but I just couldn't seem to find appropriate places to put more ideas into the chapter. It really frustrated me, especially since I'm on a roll. I'm already fifty percent done with chapter 1 of Metamorphosis, since I'm doing Metamorphosis during the breaks when I can't find the words for this one. It got really hard to go back to writing third person limited point of view since Metamorphosis uses a more third person objective.

So this chapter's POV: Sasori (my first and last Sasori POV), Chiyo, Kakashi, and Deidara. It's difficult to get into the character's mind during these POV so a lot of research was involved before I could start writing. I think I made Sasori a bit OOC, but I can only hope for the best. Next chapter's POV are Deidara (my last one for a while), Kakashi, Sakura, Tenten, and finally my last Chiyo POV. I haven't written the outline for chapter 8, but I'm thinking of making it a third person objective since it's the end of the Gaara arc… still, don't take my word for it.

I wanted to put this out before I leave for school and will be busy for a long while. I will still work on New Future but depend on it being inconsistent, just like it has for the past year. Since it's the end of the summer, I want to reflect on the fact that last year summer, I was so consistent on putting out chapters, one every two weeks, now look at where I am now: one chapter for the entire summer.

Anyway, notes for this chapter:

Ame-no-nuboko really is a weapon from Japanese mythology, and I already explained its significance in the chapter, though it was used to raise the major landmass (Japan) from the sea and I didn't say that because this place isn't Japan.

Kusanagi came from the stomach of the Yamata-no-Orochi after slain by Susanoo, the god of the sea, and given to Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun. Legend has it that the Emperor gave the sword to Yamato Takeru, who discovered that the sword enabled him to control the wind and cause it to move in the direction of his swing, so he used it to enlarge a fire set against him but towards his enemies. I incorporated its wind-controlling abilities but applied it to only wind-type chakra users.

Daiitokumyouou means Conqueror of Death in Japanese, but only in terms of Yamantaka Vidya-raja, the wrathful part/reflex of the celestial Buddha Amitabha. Buddhism won't play a large part in this story, but you can be sure there will be elements of Shintoism and Buddhism thrown in since this is a fanfiction based on a Japanese anime and manga. I will most likely only use the name of Daiitokumyou in the context of "Conqueror of Death" later on in the story, though if I do something else, I will let you know through a note.

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to the next one!

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